Working to Bridge the Gap: Linking Academic and Practitioner-based Arts and Policy Research

Jennifer and Joanna

February 25, 2014 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Harris School of Public Policy
1155 E. 60th St.
Room 289B

Jennifer Novak-Leonard, NORC Research Associate & CPC Research Manager; and Joanna Woronkowicz, assistant professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University

Jennifer and Joanna will discuss the approaches and dynamics at play between academic and practitioner-based arts research, and explore what bridges can be built to foster more knowledge exchange between these realms. Arts and cultural policy have always been diffuse areas of research and knowledge exchange (Bradburn 2013). However, in recent years, broad shifts affecting multiple fields, including a growing accountability environment, availability of big data, online dissemination networks, as well as shifts in how the arts are conceptualized, all seem to be contributing to a more concentrated and heightened awareness of and interest in a broad variety of arts research. Jennifer and Joanna will provide perspectives drawing on their experiences producing and disseminating research for scholarly and practitioner-based audiences.

Joanna Woronkowicz is an assistant professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University in Bloomington. Previously, she served as the Senior Research Officer at the National Endowment for the Arts. Joanna teaches and conducts research on cultural policy and nonprofit organizations. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Chicago.

Jennifer Novak-Leonard, NORC Research Associate & CPC Research Manager, specializes in evaluation and research — specifically innovative measurement systems to understand cultural participation, and the personal and public value derived from those experiences. Her work lies at the nexus between research, policy and practice. Previously, Jennifer was a Senior Consultant with WolfBrown and an Assistant Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation. Jennifer is the lead author on "Beyond Attendance: A Multi-Modal Understanding of Arts Participation" (2011), a monograph for the National Endowment for the Arts, and is co-author of the WolfBrown reports "Assessing the Intrinsic Impacts of a Live Performance" (2007) and "Cultural Engagement in California's Inland Regions" (2008).