The Intercultural City of Haifa (Israel) will organise an online conference on “Culture or Policy?”, on 15-16 September.

The Conference aims to create a space for sharing local and international research, knowledge, and experience on cultural policy, with a view to build capacity of a professional and wide audience who can influence and shape the way in which cultural policy is perceived in Israel.

Culture or Policy is a result of collaboration between the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), and the Department of Cultural Studies, Creativity and Production (CCP) at Sapir Academic College (SAP). This is the third annual conference that CCP is offering in the field of cultural management and leadership. This year’s conference is held on the occasion of the inauguration of a new and unique programme to promote the discourse of cultural leadership among students and within the entire cultural field. The Intercultural Cities programme will present its methodology for the participatory mapping of cultural heritage.

Among the main topics of discussion there are:

1. Involvement and participation of the public and experts in determining and implementing cultural policy.
2. Multiculturalism and pluralism in cultural policy in liberal democratic nation-states, and the place of minority groups including national minorities – their representation and participation in cultural life - self-representation of minority groups, self-expression or subcultures’ expression alongside representation and partnership in a common and integrative creative space.
3. Public funding for culture and the critical essence of cultural action.
4. Israel Arts Council - recommendations to boost the status of the Israel Arts Council in matters of cultural policy
5. Education - recommendations to expand education in culture and the arts and to enhance cultural literacy to reflect their benefits; calling on those responsible for cultural policy in Israel to place special emphasis on the expansion of education in culture and cultural literacy, similar to cultural policies of other countries.

The opening session will be addressed by the Israeli’s Minister of Culture and Sport, Mr. Yehiel Tropper.