The Council of Europe’s CultureWatchEurope Initiative (CWE) offered innovative and evidence-based overviews of culture, heritage and media developments in Europe, adding value to the Organisation’s existing information tools, programmes and methods by linking them and by inviting civil society to contribute.

CultureWatchEurope pinpointed developments, difficulties and good practices, so that cultural governance and policy making could be enhanced Europe-wide by:

  • generating and reviewing policy standards in areas of concern to governments and society by providing data, information, knowledge, comparative and trend analyses, expertise, advice, and case studies;
  • providing online information through joint access to the Council of Europe’s electronic information tools and making rapid consultation of European states in order to compare achievements.
European Audiovisual Observatory HEREIN: European Heritage Network Compendium on cultural policies and trends in Europe

 

  • contributing to prospective analysis and forward thinking by addressing topical issues and emerging trends, developments and difficulties.

 

Major events

Major events were held 2009-2012 and CultureWatchEurope Public Fora were held in conjunction with the Annual Compendium Authors meetings in 2013-15.

 

Think pieces

A number of “think pieces” were produced to shed light on topical developments: