Researchers from the University of Liverpool who charted the impact of Liverpool European Capital of Culture have won the contract to evaluate the legacy of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
The team will be based at the Institute of Cultural Capital, jointly run by the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University, and will spend the next 15 months analysing the impact of the largest cultural celebration in the history of the modern Olympic and Paralympic Movements.
Dr Beatriz Garcia, the Institute’s Head of Research, Cultural Policy and Impact, said: “The Cultural Olympiad is a unique and enormous programme which aims to reach out to millions of people across the UK.”
“We’ll be using our expertise capturing the multiple impacts of cultural activity to find out if the Olympiad has achieved its objectives and explore how it has made a difference to people in the UK, how it has connected communities to London 2012 and how it has created defining national and international moments that shape the upcoming and future story of these Games.”
The team, who will work to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), helped lead the five-year Impacts 08 programme which set out the social, cultural, economic and image effects of Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture title in 2008.
The Impacts 08 programme found that Liverpool’s historic stereotypical image, often associated with social deprivation, was replaced by a renewed emphasis on the city’s contemporary culture and creative assets as a result of its year as European Capital of Culture.