There is a great deal of emphasis on mobility, flexibility, innovation and adaptation in the Framework principles of FP10, but much less security on how the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (ASSH) will be accommodated in the Programme, and whether their distinct contributions will be clearly highlighted.
This is on one level understandable: the drive towards innovation, AI, scalable commercialization, improving comparative growth and developing defence technology are all areas in which ASSH fields of research appear marginal. And yet. The tenor of recent discussion and keynote reports such as Draghi is that aspects of culture have to change: greater flexibility, innovation and adaptation are needed. How does it make sense for culture to be a priority for change and to simultaneously marginalize research into culture ? People are part of every research question, and as is more than evident from the politics of the West today, their culture is not always to respond to evidence, but to sympathy and belief. To take only one example, how societies accept the need for action on climate change is a very important part of how the effectiveness of carbon reducing research is measured. A culture of disbelief or resistance is an obstacle.
But this is not the only reason for ASSH to be central. Business development is a core part of culture just as the cultural and creative industries are a core part of urban and national economic development. Cultural tourism as a component of mass tourism is an especially effective measure, since cultural tourists who stay overnight spend some 35% more than the average tourist. In this context, the fact that France has almost twice the proportion of cultural tourists of some jurisdictions and Austria more still brings a significant economic boost, in Austria’s case €30bn GVA as long ago as 2014, with tourism and leisure 10% of Viennese city region GVA (see Pillswatch, 2014). Austrian research into the economic impact of Mozart carried out twenty years ago has helped to make the country as a whole-and Salzburg and Vienna in particular-one of the most sophisticated historic branding operations in the world, creating-by 2019- 15% of the national economy for tourist-related activities (see Usner, 2011).
But cultural, creative and economic research does not only create high-end tourism and the upmarket retail that goes with it and the heart of Europe’s major cities: it creates new industries. Excurio - responsible for ‘Tonight with the Impressionists’ at the Museé D’Orsay (2024), has very rapidly taken some €50M in ticket sales and associated revenue from 3 million visitors for its cultural heritage experiences- nor is it alone. The MuseumsintheMetaverse project, funded by Innovate UK with a total value of €7.5M is one of the selected projects for the Digital Cultural Heritage World Congress and Expo in Siena in September. The UK’s recently released industrial strategy- which includes €120M for research funding for the creative industries, with commercialization support-notes:
The Creative Industries sector already acts as a dynamic growth engine for our economy across the UK’s nations and regions, contributing 2.4 million jobs and £124 billion GVA to the economy, generating knowledge spillovers that drive innovation.
(See Rt Hon Lisa Nandy, Ministerial Foreword to UK Government, 2025 p. 4)
Much of this comes through conventional industry routes, but some of it-as revealed by the 2018 Economic Value of Heritage study- makes better urban planning possible by undertaking research on the gravitational value of heritage, the financial benefits that can be leveraged through cathedrals, galleries and even less or intangible heritage such as food and festivals, bringing in income even through the humblest regional food and fruit, such as Calçotada’s January onion festival. While short festivals bring little net economic benefit, longer ones are important contributors. The development of the Hong Kong Creativity Index (HKCI) more than twenty years ago indicates the centrality of research, development and innovation in these areas in one of the most dynamic economic regions in the world (see Lawton et al, 2018).
ASSH research also support European concerns on security and defence. Historical research is extremely important in predicting the cultural behaviours and framing of states and cultures. The very notion of Europe itself, the history and friability of its states and the causes and effects of migration are all central to historical study. From the study of comparative efficiencies in re-arming and procurement to understanding the cultural targets of cybersecurity-the British Library is a major recent victim of cyberattack-ASSH research is focused, effective and necessary in evaluating the competing stories of Europe inside Europe itself. The work of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs (SCGA) is illuminating in this regard.
As the American urbanist Richard Florida points out in The Rise of the Creative Class, it is the ludic aspects of cities that support their growth (see Florida, 2019 [2002]). Culture and Creative Industry innovation is a central part of the most economically successful cities internationally. Of course we know this: Europe is - on one level - European culture. But it is possible to take this for granted, and to think it is not worth researching or understanding the stories we tell ourselves, because they will always be there. Yet they are always changing too, and they also stand in the way of change, whether that recommended by the Draghi Report or more broadly necessary to drive innovation and agility, and to perfect the European market in services to the same standard as that enjoyed by goods. In Design, in Digital, in Economics, in History, in Urban Studies and elsewhere, ASSH tells us what no other fields of study can, and tell us too why science and innovation can fail to prosper. In his classic Diffusion of Innovations, first published in 1961, Everett Rogers used as a case study the 150 years it took the Royal Navy to implement research on scurvy. People are part of every research question, and often culture stops the answers being heard. ASSH is a key part of changing that and making the world we want to see in Europe.
References
Pillswatch, M (2014), ‘Developing a Theoretical Model for the Functions of cultural anniversary years in city marketing: A grounded approach using two case studies from Vienna’, Newcastle: University of Northumbria.
Usner E M (2011), ‘”The Condition of Mozart”’: Mozart Year 2006 and the New Vienna’, Ethnomusicology Forum 23: 413-42.
Lawton R et al (2018), The Economic Value of Heritage, (London: Nesta).
Florida, R (2019 [2002]), The Rise of the Creative Class (Basic Books).
UK Government (2025), Industrial Strategy: Creative Industries Sector Plan
About the author
Professor Murray Pittock MAE FRSE is a board member of EASSH, co-chair of the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance and a board member and past chair of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs defence and foreign policy think tank. He is an institutional panellist for the People, Culture and Environment pilot in the UK Research Excellence Framework, authored the Robert Burns and the Scottish Economy report for the Scottish Government, and held the first Arts Industry Day in UK Higher Education in 2013, with 90 external industry partners. He is Pro Vice-Principal of the University of Glasgow.