Introduction: Making Culture Count

Abstract

In recent years, culture and cultural development have become internationally recognised as important dimensions of contemporary governance and public policy. As part of this process, the production of accurate and relevant data has become increasingly important to cultural policy and how the cultural lives of citizens are understood. There has been a range of conceptual and practical developments in measurement tools, such as new indicators monitoring the role of culture in relation to health and well-being, the vitality of towns and precincts, and sustainability and heritage programmes. From benchmarks for cultural freedom used by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), through to comparative measures of government cultural provision and creative cities indices, there are now many established approaches to quantifying cultural value and measuring progress.