Building Research Communities Through Research-Focused Labs

• In Event: 45.056 - Arts and Accessibility: What Influence Does Research Have?

Abstract

As the federal agency of record on arts research, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an independent federal agency established by Congress, through its Office of Research & Analysis (ORA), produces accurate, relevant, and timely analyses and reports that reveal the conditions and characteristics of the U.S. arts ecosystem and the impact of the arts on our everyday lives. In addition to the many research publications that the NEA commissions and publishes and evaluations it conducts, the NEA established a national program that permits transdisciplinary research teams, grounded in the social and behavioral sciences, to engage with the NEA's five-year research agenda. The NEA Research Labs program, a good example of ongoing learning communities, will yield empirical insights about the arts for the benefit of arts and non-arts sectors alike. There are eight current Research Labs investigating a full range of art types and outcomes in areas such as creativity, rural arts, arts education, social-emotional learning and health, neuroscience, innovation and entrepreneurship, and autism research. NEA will participate in this session as a co-chair, and in both its commentary and participation will bring its experience supporting and disseminating a body of research about the arts to bear. The NEA co-chair of this session has written a number of publications with and about research and is serving as a co-guest editor for a special section of Early Childhood Research Quarterly. This publication will discuss new research on child outcomes for arts engagement/education.

Author

• Melissa Menzer, National Endowment for the Arts