Beatriz Garcia

I direct the Cities of Culture Research Observatory, an international repository of knowledge about the long term impact of major cultural interventions on cities. I am also associate director at the Centre for Cultural Value, dedicated to interrogating notions of value and how they apply to culture and the arts.

I write regularly on the multiple impacts and legacy of large scale urban interventions, specialising on media narratives of the city and international cultural policy.

I have led research on the rhetoric and impact of culture-led regeneration interventions since 1998. I graduated in Barcelona (UAB), specialising in international communication policy, city marketing and the then emerging field of cultural policy research. Since then, I have led Cultural Policy research in university departments as diverse as Leisure Studies (University of Technology, Sydney) Theatre Film & Television (University of Glasgow) Sociology (University of Liverpool) and Communications & Media (also at Liverpool).

Major research I have directed include a review of all available evidence on the first three decades of the European Capital of Culture programme (ECoC) for the European Parliament; the Impacts 08 programme on the multiple impacts of Liverpool as ECoC 2008; the assessment of the four-year UK-wide London 2012 Cultural Olympiad for Arts Council England; and the first comprehensive study of the 20-year legacy of bidding and hosting an ECoC, focusing on Glasgow 1990.