Cultural value research

An ongoing multi-strand research programme evidencing the social, cultural and economic value of arts and culture — locally, nationally and internationally.

Liverpool Business School at LJMU is home to a growing portfolio of research focused on a fundamental question: how do we properly understand and account for the value of culture and cultural heritage?

Whether it is the wellbeing people derive from a local arts festival, the pride communities feel in a landmark museum, or the economic ripple effects of a European Capital of Culture, culture generates benefits that are real but often poorly captured by conventional measures. Our work sets out to change that — building the evidence base that makes the case for sustained public investment in arts and culture.

Bringing together economists, social scientists and heritage specialists, the programme spans three funded research projects — a major AHRC–DCMS-funded investigation into non-use values in cultural heritage (CHerPP), a longitudinal evaluation of the Liverpool City Region's Boroughs of Culture programme, and an international research partnership examining the social, cultural and economic impacts of Trenčín 2026 (European Capital of Culture, Slovakia) — alongside a long-running evaluation partnership with National Museums Liverpool on the House of Memories dementia awareness programme, and a DCMS-commissioned rapid evidence review on local authority funding impacts on small to medium heritage organisations.