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Qual is about promoting the value of qualitative research to creative organisations. Qual complements quantitative research which is fundamentally about numbers e.g. how many people attended this performance or that event? This is essential of course to creative organisations, but not the whole story.

“The motivational aspects of what qual gives you helps you to really understand why people do things or why they don’t do things, what choices they’re making, why are they making those choices, what drives those choices. It can be quite surprising and revelatory.”

Qual is about exploratory research: research which captures people’s thoughts, feelings and opinions about creative work, about venues, about service provision, indeed about any aspect of an organisation’s artistic work and operations. Qual research can lead to deep insights which are often really important to informing a creative organisation’s development and planning, for example, to inform marketing strategies, audience development and funding bids.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Qual has been developed by creatives and academics working together. The team is led by Charlotte Gilmore from the University of Edinburgh Business School with Celia Duffy from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. We have worked with over 150 arts people across Scotland over the past year to ensure that what we come up with is as useful and realistic as it can be and takes into the account the way that particularly small arts companies work: recognising the extreme multi-tasking and the pressures that they’re under, particularly in the current funding climate.

From the outset, the project was designed to be led by deep and multi-layered collaboration with creative insiders – we wanted to get away from the notion that we as academics know what’s ‘good’ for the arts. We don’t – but we were sure that by working together and pooling our expertise we can really make a difference together. So, building on our existing and extensive research experience across the arts and culture, and through the course of the project’s 7 in-depth case studies, 6 workshops and many other interviews and conversations, we hope to have captured something that’s going to work for, and be of value to, arts companies both in its content and in its approach. That approach is led by insiders giving real-life insights of how they use Qual research, its challenges, its value and indeed how its findings have helped them achieve (and often shed new light on) their organisational goals.

Qual will go live on July 27^th 2018 at our launch event at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh – invites to be sent out nearer the time. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our trailer which was made by filmmaker and producer Colin Morris. The trailer features a number of Scottish creative leaders who talk about how they have used Qual research, its benefits, insights they have gained, and how they have engaged with the project.

We would love to hear any feedback that you may have on the trailer or thoughts on the project: charlotte.gilmore@ed.ac.uk