STA - HECHCTAX Strand A; Developing a taxonomy for culture and heritage capital

Brief Description of purchase: This proposal will address a key priority for the Culture and Heritage Capital (CHC) Programme: developing a taxonomy for CHC that can be used to embed C&H in economic models (Kaszynska et. al, 2022).

The objectives of this research are: • OBJ 1 To develop a taxonomy of culture and heritage capital (CHC) • OBJ 2 To present the commonalities in concepts of value in economics and arts, humanities and heritage science. • OBJ 3 To socialise the study findings and the concept of a taxonomy. • OBJ 4 To explore a new strategic approach for producing economic evidence. • OBJ 5 To use best practice findings to explore "what works" for the design of CHC taxonomy.

The research will explore the following research questions: • RQ 1: What are the main parameters of a well-designed taxonomy? Economic decision making and appraisal involve a range of existing taxonomies for assets and services. It is important to understand how taxonomies are currently operationalised and what challenges exist before developing the approach for C&H. • RQ 2: What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing taxonomies? The current work in natural capital and ecosystem services has direct relevance to C&H. Before developing our own taxonomy, we need to learn from that work to date. • RQ 3: What classifications of C&H do we need to understand and embed into a CHC taxonomy? Cultural and heritage assets are complex and varied, ranging from buildings through to intangible assets such as performance. What work has already been done to classify assets? • RQ 4: How do flows of services, benefits and values of CHC emerge? In order to develop a taxonomy, we need to first understand how C&H stakeholders express the ways in which C&H heritage assets give rise to services, benefits and values and what evidence there is for those services, benefits and values from a C&H sector perspective. • RQ 5: What does a taxonomy of stocks, services and benefits for culture and heritage look like? Based on RQ1-4, how can we articulate a taxonomy that can be operationalised in economic appraisal and decision-making?

Sub consultant, IPSOS (Lawton), will input economic expertise at key stages of the development of the taxonomy considering if/ how it can be applied to economic valuation studies providing technical advice across all workstreams, ensuring cross-over between the findings and process followed in the DCMS consultancy proto-typology project, which was led by SC Lawton. The period of support will cover the full period of the project.