For those studying arts management & policy or carrying out research, I’ve compiled a list below of some useful online resources and organizations (focused primarily on ROI). If you have a research question, please feel free to get in touch and I’ll do what I can to assist!

Irish Research Resources

Irish Journal of Arts Management & Cultural Policy – a journal I co-founded in 2013 with colleagues from IADT and QUB, publishing peer-reviewed research on the Irish cultural sector. Do consider submitting if you’re a researcher yourself!

The Arts Council: Publications – this section of the AC’s website provides links to the many reports, papers and other documents published by the Council.

Arts, Education and Other Learning Settings: A Research Digest – an online document, produced by the Arts Council, that provides a very useful digest and summary of research on the arts & education (as well as other topics) published between 1979-2007.

Department of Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht – the government department (that changes names every few years!) which oversees most Irish arts activity and funding; you can access copies of the current Arts Plan and other documents here.

Office of Public Works (OPW) – find information on the Per Cent for Art Scheme, art held in public buildings in Ireland, heritage publications, and details of the other records & information held in its library.

Culture Ireland – responsible for the promotion of Irish arts abroad. A relatively new agency, CI provides funding, information and resources for Irish arts organisations and presenting partners.

Heritage Council: Publications – the HC’s website has an extensive list of online reports available.

Crafts Council: Publications – CCoI has a number of documents available including annual and industry reports and other publications related to craft in Ireland.

Houses of the Oireachtas – here you may access details of Irish government legislation, full text minutes of parliamentary debates from 1919-2008, and other legislative information.

Irish Museums Association – the IMA publish a regular journal and newsletter on all topics related to Irish museums, also available to view online.

Theatre Forum Ireland – as the primary professional organisation for theatre in Ireland, Theatre Forum’s website includes details of the types of information & reports which it makes available to its members (and often the general public), including annual analyses of arts budgets and information on HR practices in theatre.

Thrive – formerly Audiences Northern Ireland, this is the audience development agency for arts, culture, and heritage in Northern Ireland. They have free audience reports and snapshots on the Audience Insights section of their site, along with advice and practical templates for understanding and growing arts audiences.

Visual Artists Ireland – as the primary professional organisation for the visual arts in Ireland, VAI’s website includes details of symposia, exhibitions, events, publications, conferences, workshops and lectures; in addition to details about their publications, including the journal Printed Project and online copies/back copies of their News Sheet, some of the key news periodicals in the vis arts in Ireland.

Arts Audiences – an initiative of the Arts Council and Temple Bar Cultural Trust, it houses lots of resources, publications, and information about training opportunities in the areas of audience development and marketing.

Business to Arts – an independent organisation dedicated to strengthening links between Irish arts orgs and private business. Lots of useful reports, analyses, and opportunities for training and support.

Create – the national development agency for the collaborative arts in social and community contexts. Interested in community arts, arts and disability, arts and social inclusion, art and health, etc? Have a look-see at their programmes and publications.

Arts and Health – sponsored by Waterford Healing Arts Trust, this is a comprehensive resource for research on subjects related to arts and health. Evaluation reports, project documentation, articles and essays, job and bursary opportunities, etc. can all be found on their extensive site.

Publicart.ie – the main portal for information and documentation on public art in Ireland. Supported by the Arts Council, there’s information on commissioning practices, historical essays and a directory to public art across the country.

EU/International Research Resources

Compendium: Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe – this resource provides extremely useful summaries of cultural policy throughout the EU; additionally its entry on Ireland provides an excellent summary of Irish cultural policy & its historical development, aimed at an audience unfamiliar with the country. Country profiles also include information on Creative / Culture Industries, Professional Artists, Arts Education, and Amateur Arts.

The International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA) is an important transnational network for cultural policy development around the world. Like Compendium, it features synopses of other countries’ cultural policies (not just European, but internationally). It contains also job listings, research opportunities and topic discussions.

Key Dublin-based Irish Libraries for Arts Management & Cultural Policy Research

Uuniversity College Dublin – for obvious reasons, usually the first port of call for our students. There is also a dedicated subject research page tailored just for our students.

Francoise Henry Reading Room (UCD School of Art History & Cultural Policy) – includes special collections of books & periodicals, in addition to access to previous MA theses (available on request). Please note the Reading Room is accessible to current registered students at UCD only.

Trinity College Dublin – the largest library in Ireland and one of the most essential for advanced research, especially given its designation as a copyright library (it’s entitled to a copy of everything published in Ireland and the UK). Important for its historical collections (manuscripts, maps etc) as well as its contemporary ones (books, newspapers, periodicals).

National Library of Ireland – the national repository for all books, newspapers and periodicals published in Ireland, as well as extensive collections of photography, drawings, ephemera, and manuscripts.

National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) – located at the National College of Art and Design, NIVAL collects materials related to modern & contemporary Irish art, including monographs, exhibition catalogues, artists’ books, price lists, press releases and newspaper reviews.

National Gallery of Ireland – of particular interest may be the Fine Art Library (with monographs, exhibition catalogues, and texts on museology and museum education, though most of the material is of interest to art historians); NGI Archive (containing material pertaining to the establishment of the Gallery); and the ESB Centre for the Study of Irish Art (mainly primary materials related to the visual arts in Ireland, including artist correspondence, diaries, and other ephemera).

National Archives – ‘holds the records of the modern Irish State which document its historical evolution and the creation of our national identity… they provide essential primary source material for people seeking to understand the political, economic and social forces which have shaped our nation.’ Most material (which encompasses archives of gov’t depts, archives of social organizations and census data) dates from the 19th and 20th c.

External Research Links

The Guardian’s Culture Professionals Blog (which sadly stopped updating in 2016) is still a great resource on all things career-related. Though it tended to reflect the UK policy context, its articles and advice columns are extremely useful for anyone working professionally in the arts (or aspiring to).

An excellent selection of links to international research institutes in arts and cultural policy can also be found at artsmanagement.net.

See also Compendium: Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe , a resource providing extremely useful summaries of national cultural policy throughout the EU. Country profiles also include information on Creative / Culture Industries, Professional Artists, Arts Education, and Amateur Arts.

Some of the most interesting research on cultural policy in the UK is carried out by the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies at University of Warwick and the DEMOS Policy Think-tank— both well worth a browse.

If Museum Studies is your interest, have a look at the latest publications from the University of Leicester’s bookshop (the main UK based programme in Museum Studies).

For information on the U.S., check out the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA), sponsored by Princeton University.

Journal list

Click here for an extensive list and links to international journals in arts management & policy!

Online Resources at UCD

For our MA and PhD students: the UCD library subscribes to a number of excellent research databases, which contain many full-text journal articles and other reference information. The best first port of call is using the OneSearch function, which is a powerful searching tool that will take you straight in to the library’s many databases and online resources.