Being European Capital of Culture is one of the largest demonstrations of the ways in which culture can be used to create change in society.
The conference aimed at interdisciplinary dialogues about the key question: How can we understand and talk about the value of arts and culture? This will of course be discussed in relation to European Capitals of Culture; but also broader, thus also addressing a pressing need for new ways to evaluation, new ways to discuss this publically and in relation to cultural policy.
Rethinking the value of arts and culture is a key issue for Aarhus 2017 and spotlight has been put on the development of new approaches to this by rethinkIMPACTS 2017. At the conference we invited colleagues to join us in sharing and developing this ambition.
The conference was the 11th conference of University Network of the European Capitals of Culture (UNeECC). UNeECC is a unique academic network since its member universities are all located in cities which have been, are or will be European Capitals of Culture.
As such, UNeECC not only aspires to stimulate regular academic cooperation, i.e. education and research, between its members, but also aims at developing and reshaping the universities’ regional position. UNeECC wants to foster collaboration between cities and universities and is convinced that together ‘town’ and ‘gown’ will contribute to the success of the European Capitals of Culture.
