Colin Mercer was the UK’s first Professor of Cultural Policy and Director of the Cultural Policy and Planning Research Unit at The Nottingham Trent University from 1999-2003. He is the author of Towards Cultural Citizenship: tools for cultural policy and development (2002) and co-author of The Cultural Planning Handbook: an essential Australian Guide (1995). Now a freelance consultant specialising in strategic research and development at local and regional levels in Europe and internationally. He has published and consulted widely in the field of cultural policy and his work is being applied in contexts as diverse as Denmark, Hong Kong, Jamaica, and Spain. Some of Colin’s cultural policy related publications and articles are accessible for free download from his personal website.

LabforCulture moderates the Young Cultural Policy Research Forum online. Considering your own experience, what would be your main advice to the young researchers who plan to pursue a career in the field of cultural policy?

3 things really:

1. Recognise that cultural policy is a newly regenerated strategic field of public policy in the context of the creative economy, creative industries, and, especially, digitalization. Don’t get stuck in the traditional field of arts administration/cultural management. It’s much more important than that.
2. Be interdisciplinary. I have learned much more about cultural policy from economic geographers, development economists, statisticians, anthropologists, cultural theorists, network theory, than I ever did from the small established canon of cultural policy works when I started out over 20 years ago.
3. Allow your work to be informed by both quantitative and qualitative research methods. We can’t do without the hard quantitative data of statistics (the quantitative baseline) and nor can we do without the rich body of conceptual work (the qualitative baseline), from the various disciplines mentioned above.

What was the worst professional advice which you might have heard throughout your career?

Lots of this but ‘stick to the arts’ and ‘stick to the books’ were probably the worst.

Who (or what) motivated you the most by now in your research work?

Lots of this too but mostly practical results and outcomes like achieving significant new funding for public libraries and Aboriginal arts in Australia, contributing to the successful project on ‘Cultural Understanding in Bosnia-Herzegovina’, getting new communities involved in the cultural life of towns and cities in Australia and the UK, and much more.

Apart from that, I had 10 years in cultural theory and cultural and media studies in the UK and France before I started out in cultural policy. Continuing theoretical influences are Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams from the UK and Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault from France. There are many more now like Yochai Benkler whose work on network theory and the new digital environment I find very stimulating.

What still keeps you in the cultural research field?

All of the above – results, inspiration, earning a living, enjoying it, knowing it’s important.

What are you working on now and what’s next?

I am currently working on a national cultural and creative sector mapping project for the Iceland Government and a toolkit on cultural mapping and planning for the South Pacific Region. I will be possibly working in the Czech Republic soon. I have just finished work with the City of Córdoba, Spain on their bid to be European Capital of Culture 2016. Also, with colleagues at IMO in Zagreb, I am part of a successful bid to undertake a Multiple Framework Agreement on culture and education for the European Parliament.

Read the blog post also at the Young Cultural Policy Researchers Forum on LabforCulture.