How do the people of Warsaw participate in culture?

The last Warsaw-wide survey on cultural participation was conducted in 2017. Eight years is a long time for a dynamically changing city like Warsaw. It has been an exceptionally intense period: the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid development of technology (AI) and demographic changes due to the geo-political situations – all of these factors have affected the city’s residents, their habits, and their needs.

WOK has developed a new research approach to systematically measure the cultural participation of its population.

The collected raw data on participation is not enough to understand the participants of events and to create the right offer. Warsaw needs a new research programme that not only identifies the needs of the participants in Warsaw’s culture, but also understands their motivation and the factors that influence their decisions to participate in culture.

The answer to this is the comprehensive WCP research programme, which combines two types of data collection. The first is a Warsaw-wide survey supplemented by focus group interviews, conducted every four years, while the second is a self-survey of cultural institutions, repeated annually. A research model constructed in this way will make it possible to learn more about the people who use the city’s cultural offer and those not interested in this offer, and understand why this is so.

The WCP Programme aims to help the capital’s cultural institutions get to know their audiences better, which in turn will enable them to design a better-suited cultural programme and develop a more flexible response to change, but also to look for synergies and platforms for collaboration between institutions. The results of the research conducted as part of the WCP programme will serve as a benchmark for the implementation of an efficient cultural policy in the city. “The WCP is a system of interconnected vessels. A city-wide segmentation study and systematic self-survey by cultural operators will provide a comprehensive, nuanced picture of participation (and non-participation) in culture. They will provide valuable insights for many institutions. We also see the process as an opportunity to develop a ‘culture of working with data within culture’ and to increase the resilience of the cultural sector”, says Dr Małgorzata Bakalarz-Duverger, Acting Director of the WOK.

In collaboration with the Ośrodek Ewaluacji research centre, the WOK carried out a pilot self-survey in three institutions: OKO Ochota Culture Centre, “Guliwer” Puppet Theatre, and Museum of Warsaw. The two operators analysed the participation data already collected by the institutions, identified the needs and challenges in the data collection process and are currently working on prototyping dedicated research tools.

On 17 January 2025, the WOK and the Culture Bureau of the City of Warsaw held an official meeting to launch the WCP programme. It was attended by the directors of the capital’s cultural operators (municipal institutions, Social Cultural Institutions, and social organisations). The meeting aimed to present the key objectives of the programme, reveal the plan for audience research to be carried out this year, and obtain feedback on the initial stages of the WCP project from key stakeholders.