When old answers fall short, we need | Cultural Policy Lab — Forschung, Strategie, Daten und neue Werkzeuge

The lecture marked the soft launch of our application-oriented AI lab, developed in cooperation with Coachingzonen Wissenschaft. As a lab, we experiment extensively with AI — because we want to understand first-hand how knowledge work is changing, and what that means for our sector, commissioned research, culture and creativity. These are very big questions; we tackle them through studies and events, but above all through hands-on practice: How do data-secure transcription and documentation work? Which local open-source AI models can be put to meaningful use today? How can coding get started with little prior knowledge? We are working on the future of knowledge work — and have set ourselves the goal of rethinking it.

Together with colleagues from strategy and audience development, we reviewed existing reporting structures and developed two concrete tools: a Data Storytelling Canvas and a Resonance Radar. Both formats help to move beyond documenting data points and connect them with strategic communication, institutional priorities and strong images. For us, the project was a precise showcase of how impact communication, audience development and data preparation can be brought together.

The appearance made clear that questions of AI adoption are no longer niche topics, but lie at the centre of cultural and economic policy development. For us, the panel was an important place to connect empirical research, cultural policy analysis and strategic questions of the future in a broader public setting.

The study combines economic analysis, sector expertise and cultural policy interpretation. It focuses on actual use cases, changes in working methods and business models, and the question of which framework conditions can support AI adoption in the cultural and creative industries. On this basis, we are developing concrete approaches for policy, associations and companies together with our partners.

The event marks an important transition in the development of the lab: from a university-based transfer project to an independent structure for research, strategy, communication and applied cultural policy. For the news page, it is a key moment because it makes the lab's institutional development visible.

The feature addresses a topic that has shaped our work for years: the question of how working realities in the cultural sector relate to care responsibilities, family life and institutional organisation. For the news page, it is an important press item because it shows that our perspective also feeds into broader public debates on work, culture and social infrastructure.

The work combines participatory workshops, digital participation and new methodological approaches in cultural consulting. At the centre is a knowledge graph that makes Hanover's music ecosystem visible. In this way, new approaches emerge to understand relationships, clusters and lines of development in the field more precisely and to derive strategic measures from them.

Instead of optimizing existing formats, we first built audience personas from actual behavioral data and qualitative interviews, then tested them against the communication strategies currently in use. The gap was striking. Several formats were reaching people who were already convinced, while the audiences that institutions claimed to target were almost invisible in their actual reach data. The workshop ended with a prioritization exercise that forced teams to make uncomfortable trade-offs between reach and depth. One team decided to kill their most popular newsletter format — because it was popular with the wrong people.

The project combines evaluation with design: we analyse the impact of the prize using new methodological approaches and develop scenarios for its reconception. For the Cultural Policy Lab, this is exactly the right kind of commission at the intersection of analysis and strategic development. The fact that Christian Steinau comes from Comparative Literature - MA at the Peter Szondi Institute at FU Berlin (2016), PhD at LMU Munich - makes this a particularly fitting match: literary scholarship meets cultural policy evaluation practice.

The session presented a concise version of a core aspect of our work: connecting research, strategy, communication and new formats for cultural institutions and cultural administration. At the centre was the question of how cultural work can become more effective through new tools, platforms and methodological approaches. For the news page, this entry is relevant because it captures our way of working well: data-informed, practice-oriented and open to new forms of communication and participation.

The starting point was the observation that many cultural policy debates remain within relatively closed expert publics. Our aim was therefore to test new formats that could open up issues such as AI, power, culture wars, strategy, participation and impact analysis to broader audiences. Work on the channels served not only to build reach, but also as a learning space for audience analysis, process communication and new forms of cultural policy publicness.

At the core of our work is the question of how complex statistical data can be prepared in ways that are readable both for ministerial decision-making and for cultural policy debate. To do this, we combine secondary data analysis, cultural policy interpretation and our own visualisations in R. A particular focus lies on new representational formats in cultural statistics, including boxplots, which make differences, ranges and structural inequalities more visible.

The publication directly connects to the work on the Policy Toolkit for Family and Care in Theatre and translates the debate into a form that is highly usable for cultural policy. It focuses on the structural deficits of theatre organisation and on the question of how care responsibilities, working conditions and institutional viability can be thought together.

The briefing shows how cultural policy, sustainability and social transformation can be linked productively. For us, it is an example of why cultural questions should not be treated as a marginal aspect of ecological transformation, but as part of its infrastructural, social and political preconditions.

The appearance shows that our work engaged early with the systemic consequences of digital transformation in the cultural sector. For the news page, it is a meaningful entry because it connects debate, network-building and programmatic positioning in the field.

The report shows that our work is not only rooted in AI, data and evaluation, but also in debates on climate and transformation. For the news page, this is an important paper entry because it documents both the thematic breadth of the lab and its long-term engagement with sustainability issues.

The contribution is an important marker that questions of ecological transformation have been part of our cultural policy work for several years. It links classic debates on participation and democratisation with new requirements for a sustainable and future-oriented cultural policy.

The publication documents the early conceptual and institutional questions of the lab. It stands for the ambition to develop research, design, cultural policy and public intervention not as separate fields, but within one shared framework of work.

The publication shows the editorial and scholarly breadth of the lab at a moment when cultural institutions and artistic production were under enormous pressure. For the news page, it is an important marker of how early the lab responded to new crisis conditions with publishing formats.

As the final event of the research seminar on Institutional Aesthetics at the Institute of Theatre Studies at LMU Munich, Kammer 3 was transformed into a research laboratory for an afternoon. Under the direction of Christian Steinau, theatre studies students, actors from Munich's arts and culture scene, journalists and cultural policy makers came together. Four lab table rounds explored institutional aesthetics, audience research, participation and cultural policy challenges. Greetings were delivered by Martin Valdes-Stauber (dramaturg, Muenchner Kammerspiele) and Iris Bramsemann (Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft / Theatergemeinde Muenchen). In the evening, Prof. Christopher Balme presented the Cultural Policy Lab, followed by a panel discussion. What began as a university experiment became the starting point for everything that followed: publications, cooperations, new formats — and eventually the lab's spin-off.

The text is an early marker of Christian Steinau's public voice in the field between theatre, criticism and cultural policy. For the news page, it works as a press entry because it shows that central questions later associated with the lab had already entered public debate before its institutional spin-out.