Helping you to achieve your cultural and creative potential through shared visions, strategic plans and new policies

Strategy and Policy Design

BOP enables clients to achieve their cultural and creative potential by designing new strategic approaches and policies. Creating a shared vision lies at the heart of our approach so this is the keystone of any plan or strategy.

We work at all levels, from local creative organisations or clusters, to regeneration agencies, and Mayors, to regional and national governments. We work in many ways: through commissions and enquiries, stakeholder consultations, advice to ministers and mayors, comparative policy analysis, advice on legislation, exchange and knowledge platforms.

Our Approach

Our approach is always rooted firmly in evidence and an understanding of the dynamics of a particular place or organisation. For this we draw on our depth of knowledge and experience in research and evaluation. In many cases strategy and policy design follow on from work we have done to demonstrate the potential of culture and creativity to local stakeholders.

The next step in the process is to bring stakeholders together and to align them around a set of common objectives. This is an ongoing and iterative process.

Our mantra is ‘Ask not what others can do for culture, ask what culture can do for others.’ In other words, the best way to galvanise stakeholders and unlock investment is to embed culture and creativity into broader plans for sustainable growth and development.

Relevance

This process of alignment is even more important in the post-COVID age, where climate action and social justice are now at the forefront of many planning and investment decisions.

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Visitor experience

We use our expertise to help cultural organisations and capital projects optimise their visitor experience including operational planning and delivery, business development, contract development, retail, and catering.

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Business and operational planning

Whether it is an individual cultural organisation or a public agency we create business and operational plans for established as well as new entities or initiatives.

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Scenario planning

At this time of radical uncertainty we use scenario planning techniques to analyse the drivers of change, identify risks and opportunities, develop options, and plan for a range of situations.

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Sector and cluster strategies

We devise strategies for sectors at a national and local level. Our national level work is related closely to policy design. We have a particular expertise in devising local cluster strategies which are rooted in local circumstance but respond to the wider global forces shaping the industry.

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Policy design

We work with policy-makers, funders, investors, and sector leaders to design new policies, which help to foster growth in the cultural sector. This can be on the level of advocacy, funding, partnerships, or legislation.

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Cultural and creative strategies – for cities and regions

We devise cultural and creative strategies for cities and regions, often building on the insights generated from our research and mapping work. Our approach is open, consultative, and vision-driven, with an emphasis on unlocking resources and investment, and achieving maximum impact by aligning culture and creativity with wider social, economic, and environmental imperatives.

Our Services