The Role of the Arts in Mitigating Societal Challenges: Regional Policy Roadmaps for Seven European Countries

One of the key objectives of the Horizon 2020-funded project, Acting on the Margins: Arts as Social Sculpture (AMASS) is to evaluate and develop new policy frameworks for using arts to overcome societal challenges. This book illustrates some of the outcomes of the process the AMASS project partners have undertaken collectively to develop policy recommendations for the role of the arts to mitigate societal challenges. All partners participated in the policy work: Sweden tackled cultural policy analysis in the partner countries, while the partners from the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Portugal and the United Kingdom engaged in practical policy work in parallel to the implementation of the AMASS European Testbed of 35 experiments in the latter seven countries. The policy-making activities incorporated the implementation of two stakeholder workshops in each of these seven countries. 

The partners from Finland and Italy envisaged the implementation of stakeholder meetings within each of the seven counties, using service design methods to engage with the selected stakeholders. In work package four, training tools were prepared for the partners to familiarise themselves with the selected methods and approaches for implementing the recommendations of the workshops that aimed at collecting data from the stakeholders for creating the policy roadmaps. The data were used to develop a context-specific policy roadmap in each partner country, based on the needs of the European region in which they were located, through close collaboration with local stakeholders. The development of the training tools and the piloting of the stakeholder workshops have been published (Sarantou, 2021[1]; Sarantou et al., 2021a[2]; Sarantou et al., 2022[3]).

The book presents two sections. Section One, edited by Elena Marengoni, a snapshot is provided of the methodology implemented by each partner country in developing their roadmap. This section presents the general methodological approach adopted by the consortium as well as a detailed account of the activities carried out by each partner. Section Two presents the regional policy roadmaps that were developed in each country. These roadmaps tackle the forementioned AMASS objective from a plurality of views and approaches. The roadmaps are specific, addressing the needs identified within each context by the partner country and the participating stakeholders. Some of the roadmaps address cultural policy in a selected region more broadly, for example the roadmap of Finland that collates regional, national and European policy frameworks in relation to the Lapland region. Some roadmaps focus on selected groups, such as the Roma communities in Hungary.  Section Two was edited collectively, led by Sofia Lindström Sol from Sweden. All seven policy roadmaps were meticulously analysed, and findings used to inform the AMASS policy white paper alongside the findings of case studies deriving from the AMASS European Testbed.

[1] Sarantou, M. (2021). Assessing an Online Toolset and Stakeholder Workshop for Policy-Making. In Kárpáti, A. & Sarantou, M. (eds.), Arts-Based Social Interventions: First Results of the AMASS Testbed (pp. 38-51). http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-337-270-2

[2] Sarantou, M., Alhonsuo, M., Gutierrez Novoa, C., & Remotti, S. (2021). Generating Stakeholder Workshops for Policymaking. In Digital Environments Through Participatory Service Design. In Vella, R. & Raykov, M. (eds.) Supplement issue on Socially Engaged Art and Global Challenges (pp. 119-136), Malta Review of Educational Research, Vol. 15. http://www.mreronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/7-MRER-15-Supplement-Melanie-Mira-CarolinaSilvia.pdf

[3] Sarantou, M., Gutiérrez Novoa, C., Remotti, S., & Alhonsuo, M. (2021). More Patience and Creativity: Team Learning in Online Stakeholder Workshop settings. In (pp. 1-28). In Huhmarniemi, M. & Hiltunen, M. (eds.), Art(s) as an Expanding Social Sculpture, Research in Arts and Education, 3(2021). https://wiki.aalto.fi/download/attachments/203105171/Sarantou_at_al.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1642009351042&api=v2