By Joanna Woronkowicz and Doug Noonan
Last week, we virtually addressed a group of arts leaders who had convened to discuss what a national strategy for arts funding in the United States might look like. Our presentation was about whether we need research in the arts and cultural sector. (Not a rhetorical question, especially given the recent changes we’ve seen on a federal level to the state of cultural policy.)
The arts and cultural sector produces a steady stream of studies, reports, dashboards, and white papers (many of which never get seen). Yet there remains a glaring deficit of basic or foundational research: the kind of research that helps us understand how the sector actually works, how it’s changing, and how it might be reshaped or made resilient at a systemic level rather than optimized for the survival of individual organizations or preferred policy positions.
In November, we hosted a meeting at the Doris Duke Foundation on evidence-based cultural policy. The idea was to focus on using data and evidence to suggest possibly policy directions in the arts. We had some clear and persuasive presentations by people who knew their data, knew their evidence, and could make solid policy proposals.
But, like most meetings we’ve been to about the arts sector,there was an (unspoken) tension that ran through the room: Is research meant to strengthen advocacy for the field? Is it meant to improve organizational management and program design? Or is it meant to help us understand the world more clearly—even when the answers complicate our arguments or unsettle our priorities?
Research for Advocacy vs. Research from Curiosity
Too often, the sector defaults to anecdotes, testimonials, and selectively framed evidence. The result is plenty of research activity, but surprisingly little insight that would change decisions if it disappeared tomorrow. We rarely pause to ask: Would policy look any different if this research didn’t exist?
This is not just a methodological problem. It reflects an unspoken collective agenda. Beyond protecting cultural producers and restoring a pre-pandemic – or pre-disruption – status quo, the field has not articulated a shared purpose that transcends the sum of individual missions. In the absence of that clarity, external agendas fill the vacuum, and research becomes a tool for defense rather than discovery.
But what if research was not meant to defend the status quo? What if our individual agendas of preserving what we know, and what we think ought to happen, were replaced (or even just complemented) by information borne out of complete curiosity? A curiosity about how broader systems, not just one’s own opportunities. In other words, what if research in the arts and cultural sector responded to the lack of information we had, our hypotheses, and our genuine interest in how arts organizations, funders, audiences, and creators could function best?
Research shows that arts hobbyists and volunteers outnumber paid arts workers (some of whom are artists) by roughly ten to one. Taken seriously, this should force a reconsideration of where public investment is aimed and what it is meant to support. Our funding systems in the arts are targeted at the professional arts – established organizations, professional artists, and overall, producers. Evidence like this should make us change our systems such that we focus investments on supporting and growing the avocational arts – an area that is largely swept under the rug in current arts policy discourse.
At the same time, we know that the digital segment of the arts-and-culture economy has grown from about 9% to 16% of value-added in just the past decade and is on pace to exceed half of the sector’s total value by 2039. This is not simply a story about technology adoption; it has direct implications for infrastructure investment, intellectual property regimes, education and training, and how cultural value is created and enjoyed. For managers and policymakers alike, this kind of evidence should shape long-term planning decisions. Individual arts organizations will be seriously trying to persuade audiences to come back in-person, but chasing a fading relevance can’t dominate the field’s strategies and plans – we need to be thinking about meeting audiences where they are … in their digital living rooms.
These are not marginal details. They point to structural changes that could – and should – reshape strategy at both the organizational and policy levels. Yet they remain largely absent from mainstream planning conversations, where decisions are still too often guided by precedent, anecdote, or short-term advocacy needs rather than by evidence about how the sector is actually evolving.
We see the same pattern in debates about artificial intelligence. For example, public discourse often frames AI as an existential threat to artists’ livelihoods. A recent New York Times op-ed argued that creatives are “AI-proofing” their careers by moving into areas where machines are slowest to follow.
We tested this narrative using a large national survey conducted with the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP), drawing on responses from thousands of arts alumni. The data tell a different story. (SNAAP will be releasing an analysis of these data next month so you can see what the story is, and we’re working on some papers going more into depth.) The point is, often the claims in the public debate are too readily accepted without real evidence.
So, Do We Really Need Research?
Perhaps the most unsettling question, then, is whether the field would change its behavior even if the evidence were clearer, richer, and more rigorous. Do we genuinely want to understand emergent patterns and long-term trends? Or do we already believe we know what needs to be done – and simply want better arguments to justify it?
The real risk is not ignorance. It is overconfidence. A sector that mistakes certainty for wisdom becomes conservative, path-dependent, and increasingly focused on fighting yesterday’s battles. In doing so, it risks reinforcing existing power structures and missing opportunities to evolve.
This is why we must continue to invest in research – not as a tool for advocacy alone, but as an expression of curiosity. Evidence does not replace values, but it does ground judgment. We don’t know what we don’t know, and we should be deeply suspicious of any field that claims it already has the answers. The future of cultural policy, we think, is where curiosity replaces a mirror held up to our own assumptions. The curiosity can inform progress: how we do things differently and better.