NEA Presents a New System Map to Guide Research Agenda
The NEA will host a forum to announce and discuss the topics raised in a new report. How Art Works describes the agency's five-year research agenda, framed and informed by a groundbreaking “system map” and measurement model. Andrew Taylor, assistant professor at American University's Arts Management Program, and author of the blog The Artful Manager, will lead the panel which also will include NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman, NEA Director of Research & Analysis Sunil Iyengar; and Tony Siesfield, lead project consultant and partner, Monitor Institute.
The public forum takes place on Thursday, September 20, from 2:00 pm to 5:30 pm at the Abramson Family Recital Hall in the Katzen Arts Center at American University.
A free, live public webcast of the event will be available for viewing at both arts.gov, and american.edu/cas/arts-management. An archived version of the webcast also will be available at arts.gov. Follow the conversation with live-tweets @NEAArts, #HowArtWorks.
The “system map” is grounded in the theory that arts engagement contributes to quality of life in a virtuous cycle from the individual level to the societal level, and back. The map helps illustrate the dynamic, complex interactions that make up this particular system, from “inputs” such as education and arts infrastructure, to “outcomes” such as benefits of the arts to individuals and communities. The NEA developed the map through a series of dialogues with researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in the arts, economics, education, health, and other fields.
The NEA's new research agenda will use the system map as a conceptual framework for current, ongoing, and planned projects, to see how they relate to each other and to fill in research gaps. NEA research will fall into two broad categories: analyzing evidence of the arts' value and evidence of the arts' impact. For more than 30 years, the NEA has contributed to a wealth of research literature that measures aspects of the U.S. arts ecosystem, such as arts audiences, arts learners, arts workers, and arts organizations. Focusing on the arts' “value,” such research is on display in the NEA's Survey of Public Participation on the Arts and Artists in the Workforce, and will continue under the new research agenda. More recently, though, the NEA has also explored impact analysis, or how the arts affect other domains of American life, such as education, health and well-being, community liveability, and economic prosperity. This new line of inquiry is revealed in reports such as The Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth: Findings from Four Longitudinal Studies, and in federal partnerships such as the NEA's Task Force on the Arts and Human Development, which brings together 14 federal agencies and departments to identify gaps and opportunities in research on the arts' potential effects across the lifespan, from childhood to old age.