Training in cultural policy and management: international ... - Encatc

Survey on institutions and organisations ...
Thesis and Supporting Studies: including practical skills development in written and spoken
communication.
Similar patterns are found in several other programmes in the British Isles, including City University
and Greenwich in London, the Université Paris 8, St. Denis, Paris, ICCM – International Centre for
Culture & Management, Salzburg, Austria, and in the University College, Dublin’s MA in Cultural Policy
and Arts Management, where the main elements are: policy studies (including the social and economic
context); public policy and administration; comparative studies in cultural policy and management and
employment policy for the sector; business studies, including accountancy, management, business
administration and marketing; and a work placement attachment to an external cultural organisation.
Other programmes have perhaps a greater emphasis on cultural policy, such as that at Warwick
University, UK, where the MA in European Cultural Policy and Administration has core courses on
cultural policy, cultural industries, and cultural theory, with optional courses of Marketing
Management, Financial Management, Cultural Policy in France and Germany. This is added to a
cultural placement, a case study to develop skills in arts management, and a research project.
Conclusions and recommendations
1. With the growing complexity of most cultural management jobs, and the increasing trend of
delegating management responsibility to more junior staff, most professionals in the cultural sector –
whether in the arts, museums, heritage, libraries, or cultural ministries, etc. – now have substantial,
and increasing management responsibilities and need to have access to relevant management
education and training. This may be offered by specialised cultural management education and
training programmes, but there are other pathways, particularly “general” management programmes
such as MBAs and professional development and management programmes for related professions,
such as leisure, recreation, library, museum and heritage advanced management and professional
programmes.
2. However, in some countries that have legally regulated cultural sector professional and public
service employment, it is still not unusual to find that the necessary changes in public sector
employment legislation have lagged far behind the reality of the situation. It is by no means unknown
for one arm of a government to finance specialised professional and vocational courses and
qualifications, but that are then not recognised for recruitment and employment purposes by the
ministry regulating employment in the public service.
3. Conversely, specialised cultural management programmes need to recognise that many of their
former students will need to serve as managers more generally, perhaps in areas of cultural sector or
general management far removed from their specialised area of e.g. arts or cultural management, and
therefore ensure that their curriculum is broadly based and linked to the requirements of general
management competence.
4. This survey and database is an important development and has brought together much valuable
information. It is therefore vitally important that the launch of the UNESCO/ENCATC survey should be
seen as the beginning, not the end, of the process, and that both organisations should immediately
initiate active measures to maintain, update and extend it on a continuing basis:
(1) to ensure the prompt addition to the database of the obviously considerable number of new
programmes that are currently starting up every year;
(2) to seek to persuade relevant courses and organisations that have so far not responded to provide
the details that will allow them to be added to the database;
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