Evaluating Exhibition Spaces: Measuring Impact and Value

Following the publication of Measuring Social and Cultural Infrastructure, the British Academy is now exploring how the measurement framework developed in the report can be used by a variety of users, including organisations in the creative and cultural industries.

The Exhibitions Group held online workshops in collaboration with the British Academy in December 2025 and February 2026.

This workshops explored and tested how the measurement framework can be utilised by exhibition programmers and museum leaders to measure, evaluate, and demonstrate the impact and value of exhibition spaces.

Workshop participants gained an understanding of why measuring and evaluating exhibition spaces is important.  By working through the stages of the measurement framework, participants developed insights as to how the framework can be used in an exhibitions context.  Participants also considered how outputs and outcomes from the framework can help demonstrate and articulate the impact and value of exhibitions within culture and cultural spaces, and the potential policy implications of this.

This recording of the online workshop in February 2026 can be used to support your use of the Measuring Social and Cultural Infrastructure framework to measure the impact of your exhibition spaces.

Within the British Academy, our public policy programmes bring expertise from across the social sciences and humanities to bear on pressing societal, cultural and economic challenges.

One of our current public policy work themes is focused on social and cultural infrastructure. Social and cultural infrastructure refers to the spaces, services and structures that bring people together, and that can strengthen the social and cultural fabric of our communities. Our work examines how this infrastructure can be understood and utilised by policymakers and others to reframe policy debates and to help achieve a range of policy aims.

A key component of work has been an investigation into how social and cultural infrastructure can be measured, and what a measurement framework could look like. To achieve this, the Academy commissioned the Bennett Institute to conduct a major project to better understand how to measure the role that social and cultural infrastructure plays in the fabric of our societies. Measuring Social and Cultural Infrastructure was published in April 2025.

The British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences.

From artificial intelligence to climate change, from building prosperity to improving well-being – today’s complex challenges can only be resolved by deepening our insight into people, cultures and societies.

We invest in researchers and projects across the UK and overseas, engage the public with fresh thinking and debates, and bring together scholars, government, business and civil society to influence policy for the benefit of everyone.

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