Research Agenda: 2018-2019

Overview

This document presents the Research Agenda for the arts, heritage, cultural and creative sectors of South Africa for the 2018/19 financial year as formulated by the South African Cultural Observatory.

The purpose of this Research Agenda is to define and focus research efforts and resources towards achieving research outputs that would enhance the development of the arts, heritage and cultural and creative sectors in South Africa and advance the policy imperatives of the South African Government and its key stakeholders.

This document therefore aims to:

• define research requirements;
• define individual research agenda items required to address the researchrequirements of the industry; and
• determine the alignment of proposed research agenda items with strategic and policy imperatives.

This Research Agenda has been developed through a number of consultations starting in 2015 between with the Department of Arts and Culture, the South African Cultural Observatory and industry stakeholders (engagements included but were not limited to the hosting of domain workshops, consultations, feedback obtained from the SACO web-site, research outputs, written submissions and national conferences).

As a result of these extensive engagements, the current version of the Research Agenda now contains 135 research items across 15 themes. It is important to note that the Research Agenda should be treated as a dynamic and
ongoing work-in-progress, which will be continuously subjected to review and updating as new data, inputs and challenges emerge.

The Research Agenda contained in the table below, accordingly consist of three (3)
components. They are:

• The first component provides a very brief explanation of the research requirement that needs to be addressed.
• The second component states the Research Agenda Item that would have to be researched in order to address the research requirement.
• The third component aligns Research Agenda Items with the National Development Plan (NDP), the Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) and the Annual Performance Plan (APP) of the National Department of Arts and Culture.