Kate Mattocks in Milan: Focus on cultural policy

Over four extremely hot days in the beginning of July, department PhD student Kate Mattocks attended the 2^nd International Conference on Public Policy. The conference, in its second year, attracted 1200 scholars from around the world for several days of debate and discussion on public policy.

Along with Lisa Marx, from the University of Geneva, Kate co-organised and -chaired three panel sessions on cultural policy. The panels approached the interdisciplinary field of cultural policy studies from a public policy approach, on the basis that former has a lot to gain from the tried and tested theoretical models by which political scientists make sense of the complexity of policy-making. Scholars came from all over the world and presented on a range of topics including the cultural and creative industries in Thailand, cultural networks in Portugal, changing financial regulations of European Union funding, as well as more theoretical papers on the organization of cultural policy and methodological challenges in comparative arts management research.

Overall the panels were a definite success, with interesting papers presented, new friends made, and inspiring and challenging discussions on cultural policy.