In this workshop with the 40 cultural agents and facilitators, the research team presented the preliminary results from the data analysis to the participants. The training included workshops with the cultural agents and the statisticians involved in the analysis, and provided an opportunity for the participants to define the direction of the final analysis in a way that would serve their needs and expectations of the research process. 

Presentations from the workshop (including the initial analysis)

This component built the capacity of 40 young cultural agents based in peripheral and vulnerable territories in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) to measure the socio-economic benefits of their work. The project revealed that the Relative Values methodology could be adapted for use by emerging artists/producers, with no formal training in research methodologies, to devise economic indicators and apply recognised research tools that will calibrate the social and human impact of arts and cultural projects in relation to the specific territories where they operate. The 40 participants produced coherent and comparable data about what their projects achieve, resulting in the application of over 1000 quantitative questionnaires with residents from Rio de Janeiro’s most vulnerable and socially excluded communities.  The research has produced unique evidence of engagement in arts practices by a population that is usually outside of any standard measurements of cultural engagement, enabling new data to inform evidence-based policy making. 

This research has enhanced the agency of young creative entrepreneurs from vulnerable territories in Rio de Janeiro to measure the effectiveness of the interventions they seek to make through their arts practices. These testimonies provide evidence of how the young cultural agents registered that the capacity and the resilience of their creative initiatives had been enhanced through the production and analysis of data about the impact of micro-cultural industries in territories subject to high indices of lethal violence and low indices of socio-economic development in Rio de Janeiro. The research has created a process that enables socially and economically disadvantaged young people to inform decision-making that directly affects their territories. It will improve public understanding of cultural strategies for human and social development.