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 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. 

 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.

This research aims to study amateur artistic practice in community contexts, emphasizing analytic questions as: individual artistic pathways and opportunities of professionalization; artistic practice and local associations' activism; relationship between community art and socio-cultural intervention programs promoted by public policies or private cultural institutions. Research main hypothesis is that community associations are not only spaces of socio-cultural mediation and agents of cultural policy, but also platforms of professional trajectories combining art and social intervention. The  work plan also includes participation in sociology of art and culture research networks, the application of scientific projects to competitive financing, the organization of scientific meetings and seminars for non-specialists, among others.

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.