Watch the archived webinar

Washington, DC—On April 2, 2024, the National Endowment for the Arts will launch the Arts Indicators Project, a new online research tool to make it even easier for policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and the general public to find key facts and figures—and to explore lessons learned—about the role of artists and the arts in our lives and communities. To mark the launch, the NEA will host a public webinar on April 2 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. ET that will introduce the project alongside panel discussions on the importance of public data and evidence for decision-making in the arts. The full agenda is below. This event is open to the public but advanced registration is required.

The Arts Indicators Project is part of the NEA’s newly established National Arts Statistics and Evidence-based Reporting Center (NASERC), which will release statistical indicators and reports monitoring the arts as an ecosystem in the United States. The Arts Indicators Project will be available on arts.gov and will highlight key developments and trends across four domains:

• artists and other cultural workers, 
• arts participation, 
• arts and cultural assets, and 
• arts and education. 

In the future, this resource will grow to incorporate other domains and indicators, to identify cross-cutting themes for special focus, and to explore how the arts statistics intersect with those from other fields or sectors. NASERC also will produce field scans, literature reviews, topical reports, and practitioner guides designed to benefit cultural workers, funders, and policy-makers.

These new resources are part of the NEA’s commitment to investing in research on the value and impact of the arts. This public data resource harvests the fruits of long-standing research/data partnerships between the NEA and other federal agencies, such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson will participate in the April 2 launch event alongside other measurement and data experts from the federal, academic, and nonprofit sectors and arts and cultural researchers and practitioners.

Agenda At-A-Glance

• Opening Remarks by Maria Rosario Jackson, Chair, National Endowment for the Arts
• Presentation: Introducing NASERC and the Arts Indicators Project—Patricia Mullaney-Loss, Social Science Analyst, National Endowment for the Arts 
• Panel One: Scoping the Federal Context—moderated by Sunil Iyengar, Director of the Office of Research & Analysis, National Endowment for the Arts
  • Vipin Arora, Director, Bureau of Economic Analysis 
  • Christina Ciocca Eller, Assistant Professor of Sociology & Social Studies, Harvard University 
  • Lina Guzman, Chief Strategy Officer, Child Trends
  • George (Chip) Walker, Co-Chair, Emergency Preparedness and Response Team, Special Assistant Economic Programs Directorate, U.S. Census Bureau
• Panel Two: Harnessing Public Data and Evidence for Decision-Making in the Arts—moderated by Sunil Iyengar
  • Cézanne Charles, Partner, rootoftwo
  • Keith Krut, Manager of Analytics & Enterprise Architecture, National Gallery of Art
  • Judilee Reed, CEO, United States Artists 
  • Ryan Stubbs, Senior Director of Research, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
• Closing Remarks by Sunil Iyengar