Social Impact of the Arts Project

The Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) is a research center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice. SIAP conducts research on the role of arts and culture in American cities focusing on strategies of arts-based revitalization. Since 1994, SIAP has focused on developing empirical methods to study the links between cultural engagement and community well-being. Research reports and publications are available from SIAP's web site. SIAP collaborated with The Reinvestment Fund to explore the potential of arts-based regeneration strategies, producing a critical review of the literature on culture and revitalization and three policy briefs. One of these, “Migrants, Communities and Culture,” uses the Philadelphia experience to explore whether culture can help engage new immigrants with other social institutions. In addition, SIAP has contributed to Animating Democracy's Arts & Civic Engagement Impact Initiative a paper, "Civic Engagement and the Arts: Issues of Conceptualization and Measurement."