Training Services in Cultural Statistics within the scope of the PROCULTURA PALOP-TL Project, Promotion of Employment in Income-Generating Activities in the Cultural Sector in PALOP countries and East Timor

The study focuses on the four-year Sustained Support Programme (PAS4) implemented by the Directorate-General for the Arts (DGARTES) / Portuguese Ministry of Culture. Based on the construction of the Sustainable Support Programme's Theory of Change, the study's main objective is to design a framework of monitoring and evaluation indicators to support PAS4's decision-makers and management structures.

Cultural institutions play a crucial role in contemporary society as agents of social cohesion and facilitators of intercultural understanding. They actively take part in shaping collective identities and promoting understanding between different communities. New ideas and external stimuli amplify their impact and ability to build bridges between different communities and provide opportunities of social and cultural change and innovation. Impact assessment research has demonstrated notable advances and the importance of comprehensively measuring the results of cultural policies and projects. The value of mixed methods has been highlighted by recent research in the artistic and cultural field, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, incorporating the narratives of communities involved in the evaluation process, and contributing to more inclusive and sustainable practices. Within the scope of these guidelines, the Portuguese Observatory on Cultural Activities (OPAC) is part of the consortium responsible for the “Assessment and Impact of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Modern Art Center”, in the initial phase of its reopening. The internal OPAC research team is composed of Rui Telmo Gomes (coordination), Maria João Lima and José Soares Neves. The Assessment study also includes consultants Clara Rodrigues, Patrícia Vaz Lourenço and Raquel Ribeiro dos Santos.      

OPAC is developing a study and a territorial mapping named "Artistic and Cultural Atlas of Portugal (AACP)", at municipality level through a wide set of artistic and cultural dimensions, domains and indicators. The specific objectives of this Partnership Support Programme DGARTES and Iscte within the scope of the OPAC are: 1. To promote equal access to the arts by strengthening artistic supply, access and participation in the identified territories by supporting multidisciplinary artistic projects that are developed in those territories, designed for and with local communities; 2. To encourage the creation of cultural projects with the participation and active involvement of local communities, which contribute to the valorisation, training and empowerment of the populations and to the human, social and economic development of the territories; 3. To promote the participation of local artists and artistic-cultural agents in the creation of projects, the consolidation of autonomous and sustainable structures or institutions, in the various fields of activity, and activities in favour of the development of the communities, the surrounding territory and the country. In this Agreement OPAC is responsible for:a) Consult and collaborate in the preparation of the Partnership Support Programme;b) Contribute, in conformity with the operational means at its reach, to the dissemination and promotion of the supported projectsc) To take part, or appoint two members to take part in the work of the application appraisal committeed) Jointly preparing, with DGARTES, a final evaluation on the impact of the support programme (through a case study or other similar methodology) in its various aspects, namely, on the artistic fields of activity that stood out, the contribution artistic projects gave to social and territorial cohesion, particularly in terms of local impact on artistic creation and fruition and/or the identification of lines of deepening for future policy measures.

The survey is part of a partnership between OBAP - Observatório do Associativismo Popular (Observatory of Popular Activism) and OPAC - Observatório Português das Atividades Culturais (Portuguese Observatory of Cultural Activities). The research aims to map and characterize Portuguese popular associations, based on a set of questions about these associations, their activities, members, leaders and projects.OBAP is a partnership project between the Confederação Portuguesa das Colectividades de Cultura, Recreio e Desporto (Portuguese Confederation of Culture, Recreation and Sport Associations) and two Portuguese universities, Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (namely the Center for Research and Studies in Sociology) and Universidade Lusófona, whose aim is to deepen knowledge about Portuguese grassroots associations.The OPAC is a structure set up in December 2018 at Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa within the framework of the Center for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-Iscte), which is the institution responsible for its operation and scientific coordination. Its mission is to ensure the development of accurate and up-to-date research, studies and information related with several cultural domains and themes, aiming to contribute to current debates in Portuguese society and the formulation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies.

Following the research on the reading practices of Portuguese students, PNL2027 [National Reading Plan] started in 2022 the study on Reading Promotion Practices among the young population. The new study aims to characterize reading mediators, as well as the census, analysis and discussion of reading promotion practices among the school-age population, between 6 and 18 years old. The universe of the study is made up of a wide range of players who, in different contexts, share the responsibility for encouraging reading: primary school teachers, teachers of Portuguese in the remaining primary and secondary school cycles, librarian teachers, librarians and curators of PNL2027 projects or other reading promotion projects. This study is conducted by OPAC - Portuguese Observatory of Cultural Activities, a structure of CIES-Iscte and has the collaboration of the National School Libraries Network [RBE] and the Directorate General of Education and Science Statistics [DGEEC]. Funding is provided by McDonald's. 

The purpose of this partnership agreement is to carry out a research project on the impact of Doclisboa and its publics and professional participants attending the 19th, 20th and 21st editions of the Festival, which will take place in 2021, 2022 and 2023, respectively. The methodology is quantitative, with a questionnaire survey to the attendance publics and an online questionnaire survey to the professional participants. The aim of the survey to the attendance publics is to collect information about their social profiles and about aspects of their relationship with Doclisboa, with this 19th Festival and with cinema. The purpose of the survey to professional participants is to collect information about their social and professional profiles, evaluations and opinions about the Festival, and about the economic impact of travelling to the city of Lisbon.   

The Study on the Artistic and Cultural Sector in Portugal is the result of an institutional partnership agreement between the Directorate-General for the Arts (DGARTES) and Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, through the Portuguese Observatory on Cultural Activities (OPAC), in order to follow the Council of Ministers Resolution no. 41/2020, of June 6th, which approved the Program for Economic and Social Stabilization. The Study aims to analyze the impacts of the crisis in the short and medium term, with the production of updated indicators that allow a rigorous characterization of the labor situation of workers in the sector, the existing facilities and artistic entities, in order to support strategic decision-making in the governmental area of culture, and inform public and private entities as well as citizens. The study has three objectives: - To survey and characterize culture professionals as self-employed, precarious or intermittent workers regarding social profiles and labor profiles and to identify impacts of the crisis by COVID-19 in the short and medium term through a national survey that reflects the situation of artists, authors, technicians; - Share with DGARTES indicators on the universe of the entities applying for arts support programs, in order to better adapt the model during its revision and in preparation for the new cycle of pluri-annual support that will come into force in early 2022; - Create the Artistic and Cultural Atlas of Portugal, for the characterization of cultural facilities and artistic structures and entities. 

This research project is the result of a partnership agreement between the Portuguese Observatory of Cultural Activities (OPAC) and the Directorate General of Cultural Heritage (DGPC) and its purpose is the diagnosis of the museums under the DGPC and the Regional Directorates of Culture (DRC) in order to rigorously characterize them and produce indicators to serve as a basis for the proposals and recommendations foreseen in the competences assigned to the Project Group for Museums in the Future (GPMF), created by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers No. 35/2019, February 7.

Following the discussion promoted within the Working Group on Cultural Statistics of the Portuguese Statistical Council (2006-2010), a recommendation was approved in 2010 to be created a new project at Statistics Portugal (INE) that aimed to provide official statistics on classified cultural heritage. This study of the OPAC - Portuguese Observatory on Cultural Activities - aims to contribute to this achievement considering the cultural, social and economic relevance of the valorisation  of the classified cultural heritage, on the one hand, and the importance of official statistics as a fundamental instrument of public policies, on the other. From a methodological point of view, it comprehends an extensive survey by questionnaire focusing  public access. The available information on classified heritage is used to determine the universe which is the object of the survey - at this stage limited to the category of monuments with the protection of national monuments. This is an annual study started in 2019 (data referenced to 2018). The questionnaire of the 2020 edition included data referenced to 2019 and a module about impacts resulting from Covid-19.

 The Portuguese Observatory on Cultural Activities (OPAC) is an structure constituted within the framework of the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology of ISCTE--University Institute of Lisbon in December 2018, which is responsible for its scientific coordination and functioning. Its mission is the study, production and public availability of rigorous and updated information in the different cultural domains in order to contribute to the current debates in Portuguese society and to the formulation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies.

Edition of the results of visitors survey of nine national museums: Museu Nacional dos Coches, Museu Nacional de Grão Vasco, Museu Nacional do Teatro e da Dança, Museu Nacional do Traje, Museu Nacional da Música, Museu Nacional de Etnologia, Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea - Museu do Chiado, Museu Monográfico de Conimbriga - Museu Nacional e Casa-Museu Dr. Anastácio Gonçalves.

Edition of the overall results of the Study and of five participant museums: Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Museu Nacional do Azulejo, Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro e Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis.

The study is part of the process of revision of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture financial support model for the arts, which is intended to be as participatory as possible, and aims to identify positions based on the contributions expressed by artistic entities, on a wide range of dimensions, within the framework and from the experience of the relationship with the said model. The universe is made up of professional, collective and individual entities, registered in the DGArtes support management platform.The methodology is extensive in terms of quantity, from a questionnaire survey, with closed questions, pre-coded, with statistical treatment, for the characterisation of the participating entities, and with open questions for the collection of contributions, with a posteriori codification and content analysis. The questionnaire is self-administered and applied online on the Qualtrics platform.

This study addresses the musical practice that is voluntarily developed in musical associations/communities. The specific focus is on wind bands, institutions which - despite playing an important role in the lives of Portuguese people for decades – only began to attract academic interest from the turn of the century onwards.