Preface
The Nordic co-operation in culture goes back to the 1950s and has evolved over the decades. Today, Nordic co-operation is highlighted in Nordic cultural institutions as well as grant systems established as parallel to national cultural policy and infrastructure. The co-operation programme for cultural policy was revised and updated during the fall of 2024 – with an overall objective to promote an integrated region that is sustainable, competitive, and socially resilient, and where culture is a key element of a strengthened co-operation.
Kulturanalys Norden functions as a Nordic knowledge centre for cultural policy – we conduct analysis and compilations on various themes, and we also disseminate knowledge and research. Over the years we have published several research anthologies as part of collaborations with researchers in the Nordic region. These have been addressing cultural policy structures and given insights into the different national contexts regarding governance, multi-level engagement, participation in cultural life and financial structures for culture. An important point of departure has been to scrutinise the idea of the Nordic Cultural Model as identified by Peter Duelund in his 2003 comparative research project, funded by the Nordic Culture Fund and ministries for cultural policy in the Nordic countries.
This anthology is an independent continuation of the previous Kulturanalys Norden publication on Cultural policy in the Nordic welfare states: aims and functions of public funding for culture (2022). One of the concluding remarks in the last anthology concerned the need for more knowledge about how public funding initiatives at different levels support, and perhaps sometimes contradict, one another. Throughout the Nordic countries, several levels of government and administration are involved in public funding for culture: local, regional, national, Nordic, and European. To explore further on that theme, Kulturanalys Norden invited the same researchers representing each Nordic country to reflect on the interplays between national and supra-national subsidy schemes and systems. Jenny Johannisson has been both the project leader and the editor. She was invited to design an analytical framework that has guided the conduct.
In collaboration with two of the most influential funders of Nordic culture collaboration – the Nordic Culture Fund and the Nordic Culture Point – Kulturanalys Norden has been privileged to use quantitative data compilations from their funding schemes. This material has provided us with in-depth insights into the Nordic cultural funding for single artists and organisations – often entangled with national co-funding. However, it is important to note that the aim has not been to evaluate functionality in the Nordic funding schemes. Rather, the aim is to contribute with new knowledge on the interplays between different levels of funding of which Nordic cultural funding is only one.
Kulturanalys Norden would like to express our gratitude to all contributing authors and data providers for helping us take an important step to increase knowledge on the above-mentioned, in addition to other, issues. We are delighted to present the results from the joint efforts and the reflective contributions of Jenny Johannisson, Ola K Berge, Trine Bille, Sakarias Sokka, Erna Kaaber, Erla Rún Guðmundsdóttir, and Katja Lindquist. The researchers themselves are responsible for the content of their respective chapters.
Kulturanalys Norden, Gothenburg January 2025.
