Last week, IFACCA co-hosted three meetings in Helsinki: the 3rd IFACCA Researchers Meeting, the 8th IFACCA European Chapter Meeting and the WorldCP International Working Group meeting.
Researchers from 12 countries attended the 3rd IFACCA Researchers Meeting. Previous meetings had been held in Singapore (2007) and Montreal (2004). This meeting, on 25-26 June, focussed on audience engagement; self-evaluation models; measuring the impact of arts funding; and options for developing ongoing communications between government arts researchers.
The European Chapter meeting, on 27-28 June, was attended by senior personnel from 12 IFACCA member organisations in Europe. Participants discussed ‘changes and challenges’ – structural changes in arts support agencies; evaluation of funding programs and structures; and models of support for design. Ann Branch, DG EAC, European Commission, was a guest presenter at the meeting. She presented the new ‘Creative Europe’ programme which will see the culture, media and media mundus programmes brought together in a single framework programme and the creation of a new financial facility for SMEs in the cultural and creative sectors. Members also discussed ways to enhance future communications with the Commission.
The WorldCP International Working Group met on Thursday 28 June. The working group comprises senior personnel for each regional or international partner organisation. The International Working Group provides advice on the project, and has met annually since 2010. Working group members took this opportunity to discuss the development of WorldCP-Asia, progress on WorldCP in Africa, Latin America and the Mediterranean, and marketing and funding for the project. Further information on WorldCP is available from www.worldcp.org.
Following the IFACCA meetings, there were two other key meetings organised to flow on from the European members’ meeting. The first was the 11th Annual Assembly of the Compendium on 29 June, and then the CultureWatchEurope meeting on Saturday 30 June. A number of participants were able to take part in all the meetings leading to valuable exchanges between the 120 delegates that came to Helsinki to attend one or more of the meetings.
Particularly well received in the European meetings, were the presentations of delegates from outside Europe. These included Sabina Santarossa, Director of Cultural Exchange at the Asia-Europe Foundation (based in Singapore); Anmol Vellani, Executive Director, India Foundation for the Arts and WorldCP Asia, regional editor (based in Bangalore); and Florence Mukanga, Author, Zimbabwe profile for WorldCP (based in Harare).
We thank all participants for their contributions to and participation in these meetings. We would particularly like to acknowledge the support of the Arts Council of Finland, which co-hosted these meetings.