In the last Listen to the Gears, I talked a lot about research, dissemination and perceived value for money. Really, it seems it is all about Impact. Unusually for this column, I am going to discuss only one podcast. There was a very interesting panel discussion, recorded at the recent Cambridge Festival of Ideas and put out on the Guardian Culture podcast. In ‘Austerity for the Arts?’ four British arts professionals considered the state of arts and culture in the UK in the light of the recession.

Sue Hoyle discussed the economics of mixed funding and the decline of arts funding at a local level. Calling for strong leadership in the arts, she championed those who would innovate and not just keep chugging along the same way people had done it for years because ‘that’s the way we have always done it.’ Huge changes in funding need to happen, but someone has to be strong enough to take those risks.

Peter Florence from the Hay Festival made a very good point: the arts did not end in the 30s/40s/50s. Austerity in itself is not bad for the arts. He’s right. Creative people are not going to stop making/writing/creating just because there is little funding for it. Florence again stressed the importance of finding new and creative ways of funding and claims that people in Britain are good at this due to a very rich cultural education. In fact referring to the SAS in the first instance and bemoaning the Olympic bid he uses the marvellous line:

‘We are not world class in anything other than killing people and culture’

So, that’s our impact then? That is what we are known for? Help me out here, rest of the world! Really?

Sheryl West from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (one of the main funding bodies in the UK) addressed the impact of the cultural sector in her talk. What can the public be seen being done? What is the impact of their research? She argues that academics and arts professionals need to demonstrate the value of funding to the taxpayer more. So, how can we all do that? Make it more accessible? Would websites work? TV programmes? Exhibitions? Blogging?

Oh. Hang on a minute. Remember how they don’t like that? What to do? It seems there are polarised debates on Impact – some say it is good: tell everybody about what you did and how it can help them! Some say it is bad: keep your head down and only publish it in esoteric journals. West argues that there are real problems with academics being too embarrassed or modest about their research, so nobody gets to hear about it. She also hits upon the same problem with dissemination that I discussed last time: namely that academics are not rewarded for impact but for things like journal based research which mainly stay within the academy. Her ending statement is this: ‘In a period of austerity we need to OWN the idea of impact and get behind it.’ So, in museums, galleries and other cultural institutions, how does that affect us?

What do you feel about impact? How do you measure it? Is it to do with money? Value-for-money? Visitor numbers? Is it how much outreach you can do in the local community? Or for your institution is it about how many journals your staff can get published in and how much funding you can get from that? Or do you even think that you can measure impact?

As you know, Pete is away this coming week. If there is anybody who would like to write a guest post, you can reach me at August(at)newcurator.com. Tell me your ideas for the future of museums. I’d like to hear them.