May 11, 2016
To date, Hill Strategies Research has published 46 reports in the Statistical Insights on the Arts series, aiming to provide reliable, recent, and insightful data on the state of the arts in Canada. This series was an original idea of Kelly Hill upon founding Hill Strategies in 2002.
Hill Strategies regrets to inform our readers that the funding consortium for the Statistical Insights on the Arts series has suspended funding for the reports in 2016/17, due to a lack of currently-available, arts-relevant datasets. On a related note, the no-fee presentation series has also been suspended in 2016/17.
There have been a few key factors in the suspension of this publication: 1) a one-year delay in the fielding of arts participation questions; 2) revisions to the Survey of Household Spending that have reduced the number of arts-relevant line items; and 3) other than for the report Educating Artists, we were not able to find new datasets that met the funding consortium’s needs over the short term.
The Arts Research Monitor is funded through a separate contract with a different funding consortium, and that research publication continues (having just started its 15th season).
As a result of this change, Hill Strategies has more time for special projects and would love to hear about any survey ideas or other arts research needs that you might wish to pursue. For inspiration, you may wish to check out our recent survey work and qualitative research related to the arts in B.C. and our report on Municipal Cultural Investment in Five Large Canadian Cities. We have recently conducted (or are in the process of conducting) surveys for Theatre Calgary, Arts Council Wood Buffalo, the Dancer Transition Resource Centre, and the McMaster Museum of Art.
