The Capital of Culture office is picking up speed. On 4 and 5 July, an important dialogue took place on evaluation issues concerning the European Capital of Culture. Prof. (FH) Elisabeth Leitner, head of the architecture course at the Carinthian University of Applied Sciences, was invited as an expert.

 

As part of her dissertation at the Vienna University of Technology, Elisabeth Leitner dealt with evaluation reports from a wide variety of Capitals of Culture over the last 15 years and launched the initiative kulturhauptstadt2024.at, an initiative that has looked at around 40 possible Austrian cities and regions.

During the workshop a special focus was placed on Graz 2003, a city comparable to Chemnitz in terms of structure, size and issues.

In addition to the head of the Cultural Office Ferenc Csák, Egmont Elschner (Cultural Advisory Board), Prof. Dr. Christoph Fasbender (TU Chemnitz), Stefan Tschök (CVAG), Robert Gruner (Mayor’s Office/Press Spokesman) and advisor Christoph Thoma (Culturelab) took part in this important exchange.

The title of European Capital of Culture is awarded on the basis of a selection procedure based on an application book (bidbook). In the context of the evaluation, the European Commission asks the following questions:

Describe your plans for how you will track and evaluate the impact of the title on your city and how you will disseminate the results of this evaluation. In particular, you should consider the following questions:

Who carries out the evaluation?

  • Will your plan for the evaluation also include concrete goals and milestones between the appointment and the title year?
  • Do you want to use basic studies or surveys, and if so, which ones?
  • What kind of information will you track and monitor?
  • <How do you define "success"?

  • In what time frame and how regularly is the evaluation carried out?

Chemnitz is currently working intensively on perception, considering qualitative studies, documenting the application process and trying to make the application itself as transparent as possible. Only in this way can the soul of the city be credibly underpinned with a European narrative. And one thing became clear during these two days: only with knowledge transfer, openness, clear announcements and decisions that are constantly being questioned can the project actually lead the city successfully into the year 2030.