Our skilled and experienced team of researchers and consultants take an evidence-based, data-driven and user-centred approach to helping organisations develop and deliver work with meaningful social, cultural and economic impact.
Our Consultancy and Research services are rooted in our mission and values. We enable organisations to increase their reach, relevance, and resilience by helping them to better understand and engage with their audiences and communities. We understand the changing nature of how people are engaging with culture and creativity, the shifts in the environment affecting organisations and the need to make your case in new and impactful ways.
Our Process
Our experienced team of specialists brings together cultural sector consultants with researchers skilled in both quantitative and qualitative analysis, in order to help you achieve maximum potential at every stage of your audience development journey:
Planning
Understand your audiences and challenges
From initial consultation sessions, easily available data tools and reports, webinars and online resources, formative research, and advice on how to interpret and use your data, we have a range of services that can help you decide how best to answer the big (and smaller) questions you have and identify current and potential audiences.
Doing
Realise your ambitions
We offer a range of services led by our expert consultancy team to support you to develop practice and strategy and designed to help you achieve your objectives - whether this is audience development, digital or cultural strategies, inclusive practice or embedding participative or co-creative approaches.
Reviewing
Evaluate and reflect
Our evaluation services enable you to describe in context who you have engaged, tell stories of your success, learn, develop practice and/or demonstrate the impact of your work to your stakeholders – be they Boards, partners or participants or funders.
Our Principles
Our research and consultancy methods are honed from over a decade of in-field experience and are built on five foundational pillars of practice:
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Evidence-based and data driven
Our evidence gives us a uniquely holistic view and understanding of the whole population - not just cultural attenders and ticket buyers - and we understand the complexity of an individual’s cultural engagement.
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Place-based and collaborative
We bring a holistic understanding of ‘place’ that empowers partnerships and local authorities to build effective strategies which result in positive change for the cultural and creative sectors, alongside tangible benefits to residents.
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User-centred
Our user-centred approach, runs through all our consultancy services – whether research, co-creation, embedding practice, or evaluation principles. This is drawn from human centred design thinking and enables organisations to focus on the interests and needs of its audiences in a holistic way.
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Breadth and depth of sector understanding
We work across the cultural sector and with organisations and initiatives that integrate culture and creativity in their work.
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Reach, scale, and influence
Our expertise and network enable us to work at local, national, and international levels. We help build the capacity of the sector with leaders, practitioners and organisations, through collective marketplaces, with policy makers and funders and through academic partnerships.
