In absolute terms, we only include research that is published in peer reviewed academic journals. This is for two reasons: it is a primary source of high-quality research that is frequently theoretically grounded and methodologically sophisticated – and hence has enormous potential value to decision-makers and advocates in the cultural sector; secondly, it tends not to feature in the advocacy material of the cultural sector and even less in the decision-making process of practitioners.
We use one main criterion to decide whether a journal article should be summarised for inclusion in CultureCase: relevance to the cultural sector questions, challenges and opportunities that have been put to us.
We have consulted with various people across the cultural sector and we held an energetic half-day stakeholder workshop to identify the themes (and questions within them) that would be interesting and useful to users of CultureCase. Those themes and detailed questions are available for download as a PDF: CultureCase Themes. Attendees to the workshop formed the basis for an expanded group of beta testers who have been giving us feedback prior to the launch of CultureCase.