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CultureWatchEurope: Cultural governance observatory
Mission
 The Council of Europe’s CultureWatchEurope
Initiative (CWE) promotes culture as "the soul of democracy" by offering an innovative and evidence-based overview of culture, heritage and media developments in Europe. CultureWatchEurope
adds value to the Organisation’s existing information tools, programmes and
methods by linking them and by inviting civil society to contribute.
CultureWatchEurope is value based, responsive, and aware: devised to pinpoint developments, difficulties, and good practices so that cultural governance and policy making can be enhanced Europe-wide. Key words in this mission are:
democracy, transparency, access and participation, respect for identity and diversity, intercultural dialogue and cultural rights.
Action includes:
 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:
contributing to prospective analysis and forward thinking by addressing topical issues and emerging trends, developments and difficulties;
offering a platform for creative exchange and policy debate between governments, cultural practitioners and civil society on key issues through major conferences
and the
HOTopics site.
 HOTopics
explores developments such as the democratic potential of the
'digital age' and other current
concerns. It offers an
innovative and evidence-based overview of culture, heritage and
media issues in Europe and provides a space for interactive
policy debate.
HOTopics is developped in cooperation with
ECURES (European Association of Cultural Researchers e.V.).
and will be continuously perfected as a tool for watching cultural
democracy in the 21st century.
Major events
2012 Event "Cultural Access and Participation - from Indicators to Policies for Democracy", Helsinki (Finland), 30 June 2012,
2011 Think tank
"Cultural Governance: from challenges to changes",
Bled (Slovenia), 11-12 November 2011
2010 Conference
"Culture and the policies of change", Brussels
(Belgium), 6-7 September 2010
2009 Conference "Culture and development 20 years after the fall of
communism", Cracow (Poland), 4-6 June 2009
Think pieces
Digitisation and cultural democracy, an (as yet) unfulfilled
promise (J. Smiers)
The Impact of the New Nationalism and Identity Politics on
Cultural Policy-making in Europe and Beyond (P. Duelund)
Culture and Climate Change
(O. Gerlach-Hansen)
New models of governance of culture (K. Pavić)
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Culture
Action Europe
ERICarts Institute
European Cultural Foundation (ECF)
LabforCulture
European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC),
Budapest Observatory,
Interarts
Culturelink Network
International
Federation of Art Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA)
International Cultural Centre of Cracow 
+33 388 41 28 84