This interdisciplinary project will be thematically structured around 3 issues: the values of culture; cultural work; and digitalised cultural consumption. It will focus on performing arts (e.g., theatre) and museums, two sectors that have been significantly affected by the pandemic and are under intense pressure to actively embrace the virtual. First, we will re-map the meanings and benefits of culture in the context of the pandemic via a systematic literature review and large-scale online surveys. From this, we will identify and describe the new, emerging social consensus regarding the values of culture and the purposes of cultural policy. Second, we will examine the functions of key institutions that affect the nature of cultural work (artists' unions, public funding, contracts, industry practices and relevant labour policy) and identify potential changes that would allow them to more effectively address the precarity of cultural work in the context of the continued impact of the pandemic. Third, via case studies of select performing arts organisations and museums, we will investigate how these entities reconcile their traditional beliefs in materiality and 'live' with the pressures to go digital in production and audience engagement. Cross-national online surveys will give us a bigger picture of whether and how the online delivery of digitalised cultural content can bring larger and more diverse audiences to culture. Across these three project themes, we will employ a mixed methodology, combining a systematic literature review, surveys, discussion panels, interviews and case studies. Many of our research events will be held online across the UK and Japan with simultaneous interpretation. Despite their differences in social structures and public attitudes toward culture, both Japan and the UK have continuously struggled to justify state subsidy for culture, and their funding systems were not directly connected with individual artists and cultural workers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cultural policymakers in both countries have also shown concern about the uneven level of public cultural participation and are keen to know whether and how this will change with the rise of digitalised cultural consumption. By pulling together the interdisciplinary expertise of the research team and involving stakeholders from the cultural sectors of the two countries, this research will help policymakers freshly engage with the core issues of cultural policy through cross-national conversation, learning and problem-solving. The Agency of Cultural Affairs (Japan), Mori Art Museum, Ohara Museum of Art, Arts Council England and Equity have agreed to be our project partners, and there will be additional partners from both countries. We will actively engage with cultural practitioners and with experts in artist labour, labour policy and law, contracts, copyright and digital technologies to explore specific policy measures to tackle the continued impact of the pandemic as well as unpredictable future risks. After the project ends, the UK-Japan project team will publish 2 co-edited books (1 in English, 1 in Japanese) and minimum 4 journal articles (2 in English/open access, 2 in Japanese) to widely disseminate the project findings in Japan and the UK and to international researchers and policymakers.

Generative AI (GenAI) burst into the popular imagination in late 2022 with the release of ChatGPT - a chat agent that has proven not only to be very popular but also signifies a major leap forward in technological capabilities. ChatGPT is just one of several GenAI technologies that has entered the scene in recent years; others can generate (or alter) video, images, music, dialogue, and computer code. These developments have the potential to change the nature of work for many, including for workers previously deemed immune to direct competition from technology. There is urgency to studying the impact of these tools in the specific context of creative work, in which technologically-mediated worker precarity is an ongoing but increasingly acute concern. Worker resistance, as exemplified by recent industrial action by the Writers Guild of America, highlights that impacts go beyond 'displacement' of or access to work, and can impact established notions of authorship while also affecting worker discretion and dignity. The creative sector is at the coalface of the GenAI transformation in which emerging technologies potentially devalue labour materially (wages) and socially (recognition of contribution). Our understanding of the transformative effects of GenAI in creative work is still emerging but present; the experience and perspective of those whose lives and livelihoods are increasingly threatened by these new technologies have not been properly factored into AI policy planning and change. What is needed is to bring these perspectives into view where they can influence labour policy in the area of data-driven technologies. To achieve this requires the building of new architectures that bridge this divide between experience and application and which promote involvement by building on the strength of UK labour law, comparable historical precedents like Scandinavian participatory design, and recent turns toward participatory algorithmic impact assessments. Algorithmic impact assessments hold promise as accountability tools that can surface core concerns about the effects of data-driven technologies while pointing towards governance strategies for mitigating those concerns. Where impact assessments are designed to foreground the voices of people affected by emerging technologies, they can also serve as frameworks for surfacing and crystalising perspectives that reflect the lived experience of technology-mediated lives, which in turn can be channelled into policy guidance. In this project, we bring together two leading and relevant methods of impact assessment: the Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law Assurance Framework for AI Systems (HUDERIA), and the Good Work Algorithmic Impact Assessment (GWAIA). The GWAIA has been selected as a focal point because of its specific application to questions of worker dignity. Its current design is relevant to algorithmic management tools within a 'conventional' employment context. We will cross-reference this with insights from HUDERIA, which brings specific insights with regards to structuring accountability in the relationship between individuals and technology producers, public and private. A central feature these tools share is the participatory engagement model of surfacing, assessing, and mitigating individual and collective risks to workers by drawing on the experiences, testimony, and ideas of workers themselves.

HEartS Policy is led by the Centre for Performance Science, a partnership of the Royal College of Music and Imperial College London. It leverages the knowledge produced during two previous AHRC funded projects; The Health, Economic and Social impact of the ARTs (HEartS) project (AHRC 2018-21, AH/P005888/1), and HEartS Professional (AHRC 2019-22, AH/V013874/1), alongside the key industry partners. Three work packages (WPs) are themed around different findings, with tailored insights of our findings adapted to the needs of different audiences. WP1, Everyday HEarts: WP1 will comprise the development of a series of short, animated films targeting a public audience, highlighting key research findings on how arts and cultural engagement supports health and wellbeing, focused on the outcomes of HEartS. 90 second 'bitesize' animated films will give the lay public a direct and accessible route through which they can engage with knowledge that will enable them to enhance their practises to best support health and wellbeing. These animations will be complemented by a research report and educational resource pack, highlighting the key findings of the HEartS research. Using the same themes as the animated films, this pack will be oriented towards educators and aimed at integrating HEartS findings within personal, social, and health education. A primary objective of this resource is to support the use of the animations within schools as a tool for communicating the value of the arts for mental health and quality of life. WP2, HEartS in Health and Practice: WP2 will comprise the development of a podcast series (comprised of eight, thirty-minute episodes) split into two parts: WP2a, HEartS for Health and WP2b, HEartS in Practice. These podcasts will consist of researchers and practitioners in conversation with (i) health and clinical workers (such as GPs, mental health and community practitioners) exploring how HEartS practices can be more effectively implemented in practice, and (ii) discussion on the health of creative professionals, drawing more explicitly on the findings of HEartS Professional. Both sets of podcasts will be accompanied by policy briefs targeting both government but also organisational and educational policy. WP3, HEartS Summit: WP3 will develop a lasting impact for the findings of HEartS through the HEartS Summit. This two-day event brings together our project partners and other relevant stakeholders to (a) explore the interlinked outcomes of creative health and the future health of the creative workforce, and (b) collaboratively develop strategies for action that will cement project findings within policy and practice. This project will serve to maximise the impact of HEartS and HEartS Professional, extending its findings to both more diverse and targeted audiences, and through exchange with our knowledge partners extending well beyond unidirectional dissemination activity. Our work packages seek to maximise the accessibility of our research insights, and with the close collaboration of our partners, to enhance the social, economic and policy impact of the work beyond the lifespan of the project. In particular, tailored activities within each of the work packages will ensure that key messages are not just shared but presented alongside strategies to support long term change. Overall, the distinctive interlinked perspective of HEartS Follow On, combining the future of creative health alongside the health of creative professionals, will both build pathways for the integration of creative health into education, policy, and artistic practice, while also enhancing the sustainability and flourishing of the arts and cultural industries.

This project will be the first to develop a theorisation of care in the cultural industries by holistically considering the interrelations between production, participation and policy in the UK's reality television (RTV) sector. RTV is a significant and highly controversial site of media production that has rapidly expanded over the last two decades with an increasing share of the UK's £1.48bn global TV export market. High profile concerns around mental health risks have led to changes to Ofcom's Broadcasting Code around improved welfare for participants, whilst broadcasters increasingly understand a need for the continued evolution of care practices across the sector. Most policy and industry initiatives have thus far focused on risk management around mental health concerns for individual participants, without any interrogation of the broader contexts of cultural labour and working practices. This project will use a cultural industries approach (Hesmondhalgh 2019) to investigate how care is understood and experienced across reality television by asking four overarching research questions: 1. Production. How is care understood, mediated and practiced by different workers across reality television production? 2. Participation. How should the working experiences of participants inform our understanding of care in RTV? 3. Policy. How is care understood, inscribed and implemented in policy and industry decision-making? 4. Care. How can the analysis of care be incorporated into theorisations of cultural labour in the creative industries? A large programme of qualitative empirical research across four work packages will include policy analysis, media tracking, and qualitative interviews with a diverse range of key stakeholders. The research will centre the previously overlooked experiences of production workers and non-professional participants alongside contemporary policy debates and public concerns around duties of care. The findings will be synthesized and analysed using a feminist theoretical model of care (Tronto 2013, Held 2006) to develop new insights into the interrelationships at work across RTV's media ecology in the UK. Our investigation into how care is mediated and practiced within cultural production will have wide application across academic scholarship and the creative industries. The project will work with the co-operation of all the UK Public Service Broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Viacom/Channel 5 and Channel 4) and three key project partners. We will be partnering with BECTU, the media and entertainment workers' union, in order to understand how care is implemented in production, which will inform the creation of a report and training materials. We will be partnering with Equity, the trade union for creative practitioners, to listen to participants' voices, understand their needs, and to consider whether and how they can be formally recognised as cultural workers. This will lead to the production of a video for would-be participants which informs them of their rights and helps them to negotiate the complex terrain of RTV production. We will be partnering with the DCMS select committee to integrate findings from production, participation and policy, both to consider the current protections in place and to propose future policy recommendations. In order to generate a dialogue between our analysis of working practices and concerns around mental health, we will consult with the Chair of the British Psychological Society's Media Advisory Board (Prof John Oates) to understand how our findings can support developments around mental health protections, which will also inform our report to the DCMS select committee. The empirical knowledge produced by this project has transformative potential for re-conceiving care in RTV production, whilst the new theoretical framework, derived from careful empirical analysis, will offer a far-reaching academic agenda for care in the creative industries more widely.

COVID-19 threatens the performing arts; closures of theatres and outlawing of public gatherings have proven financially devastating to the industry across the United Kingdom and, indeed, the world. The pandemic has sparked a wide range of industry-led strategies designed to alleviate financial consequences and improve audience capture amidst social distancing. COVID-19 has affected all levels of the sector but poses an existential threat to freelancers--Independent Arts Workers (IAWs)--who make up 60% of industry workforce in the UK (EU Labour Force Survey 2017). The crisis has put a spotlight on the vulnerable working conditions, economic sustainability, mental wellbeing, and community support networks of IAWs. IAWs are often overlooked by the industry and researchers, however it is their very precarity that makes them pioneers of adaptability responsible for key innovation within the sector. IAWs may prove essential for the industry's regrowth post-COVID-19. An investigation is necessary into the impact of COVID-19 on IAWs and the wide-ranging creative solutions developing within the industry to overcome them. There has been increasing pressure to gather 'robust, real-time data' to investigate the financial, cultural, and social potential long-term consequences of COVID-19 on the UK theatre industry. The impact of the pandemic on IAWs is particularly complex and wide-ranging. A TRG Arts survey stated that 60% of IAWs predict their income will 'more than halve in 2020' while 50% have had 100% of their work cancelled. Industry researchers from TRG Arts and Theatres Trust have launched investigations examining the financial impact of COVID-19 on commercial venues and National Portfolio Organisations, but there has been insufficient research into the consequences for IAWs (eg. actors, directors, producers, writers, theatre makers, technicians) and the smaller SMEs beyond income loss and project cancellation data. In May 2020, Vicky Featherstone of the Royal Court Theatre, stated the importance of support for the 'massive freelance and self-employed workforce' she believed has been 'taken for granted' by the industry. Our study fills this gap by capturing and analysing not only the economic impact, but the social and cultural transformations caused by COVID-19 by and for IAWs. We will compare regional responses across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as well as variations across racial and socio-economic groups. Our aims are to document and investigate the impact of COVID-19 on IAWs, identify inequalities in the sector, investigate changes in the type of work produced post-COVID-19, and help develop strategies for how the sector can move forward from this crisis. We will investigate connections between the financial consequences of COVID-19 and creative strategies for industry survival including social support networks, communication initiatives between arts venues and IAWs, and the development of mixed-media work in the wake of the pandemic. Our study scrutinizes the economic, cultural, and social impact of COVID-19 on IAWs and the organisations that serve them with the aim of informing strategies for sector recovery.