Regional Trends | Europe and North America

Europe and North America 

• While the study area has a long tradition in the conservation of its rich cultural heritage, including through well-established museums and other cultural institutions, cultural policies have gradually expanded to encompass cultural and creative industries.
• Whilst there are generally strong cultural policies at the national level, there is increasing recognition of the importance of fostering sub-regional and regional cultural identities, in the face of challenges to the multilateral system.
•  Digital technologies increasingly feature in cultural policies, including to protect artists’ rights, expand access to culture or broaden information sources to encourage sustainable cultural tourism.
•  In a context of increasingly diverse societies, enhancing social inclusion through cultural policies, fostering respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is a priority, and there have been recent innovative methods to reinforce data collection to address this issue.
• Whilst overall, countries within the study area have aligned pubic policies to the 2030 Agenda, notably through a growing number of Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), there is further scope to integrate culture into cross-cutting public policies, particularly in urban regeneration.

Eastern Europe 

• The sub-region places great emphasis on intercultural dialogue, due to its history at the heart of the silk roads where different cultures blended.
• Cultural policies in the region have a strong focus on heritage to foster strong national cultural identities, and the sub-region has strong systems in place for the transmission, including through digital platforms.
• Sub-regional cooperation in the field of culture is growing with heritage and youth projects constituting important areas of cooperation.
• Strong arts education policies that mainly focus on skills development and the transmission of tradition, more than creativity and innovation, are integrated into school curricula.
• Whilst all countries have adopted national plans for attaining the Goals of the 2030 Agenda, culture often remains a specialised policy domain despite its potential for encouraging tourism and designing more inclusive urban policies.