UK Cities of Culture: Stakeholder interviews with runner-up applicants
A rapid evidence review of the benefits, to runner-up applicants, of bidding for City of Culture titles.
Documents
Details
This paper presents the findings from interviews with stakeholders representing nine cities that bid to become UK City of Culture (UKCC) or European Capital of Culture (ECoC) but were unsuccessful. The main aim was to explore the benefits of bidding, in the cases where the title was not secured.
One-to-one interviews and group discussion observations were conducted in February and March 2024 with stakeholders representing bidding cities who worked either on UKCC or ECoC bids between 2017 and 2023. Four of the cities were UK based, five were from the rest of Europe.
The report concludes that bidding can be transformative for cities, even if they don’t win, and offers recommendations for improvements and for maximizing the benefits of the bidding process.
The report is authored by Dr Beatriz Garcia. This research was developed and produced according to the author’s hypotheses and methods. Any primary research, subsequent findings or recommendations do not represent UK Government views or policy.