National Endowment for the Arts Readiness and Resilience Convening

A summary of a convention for the National Endowment for the Arts which discusses the brief key leaders, how to advance collaboration and comprehensive emergency strategies, and the roles and responsibilities in readiness pertaining to arts and cultural leadership

Does the book have a future?

Advances in technology have produced a range of devices on which a book can be read, from an e‐book reader to a tablet or phone. E‐books have the advantages that a reader can take a sizeable selection when traveling, read backlit text, and enlarge the type size to suit. The book exists in both printed and digital form, as p‐book and e‐book. Digital technology has also revolutionized the production of printed books. Digital printing, as opposed to traditional offset printing, enables genuine print on demand as well as short runs. This facility has less relevance to the world of mass‐market paperbacks, where large print runs mean that the benefits of offset printing still apply, but it is of great interest to most publishers and those who want to self‐publish. In fact, more books are published than ever before, and there has been a boom in self‐publishing

The impact of community-based arts and health interventions on cognition in people with dementia: a systematic literature review

Objectives: Dementia is a progressive condition, affecting increasing numbers of people, characterised by cognitive decline. The current systematic review aimed to evaluate research pertaining to the impact of arts and health interventions on cognition in people with dementia. Method: A literature search was conducted utilising PsychInfo, Cochrane Reviews, Web of Science, Medline and British Humanities Index databases. Seventeen studies were included in the review, including those related to literary, performing and visual arts. Results: The review highlighted this as an emerging area of research with the literature consisting largely of small-scale studies with methodological limitations including lack of control groups and often poorly defined samples. All the studies suggested, however, that arts-based activities had a positive impact on cognitive processes, in particular on attention, stimulation of memories, enhanced communication and engagement with creative activities. Conclusion: The existent literature suggests that arts activities are helpful interventions within dementia care. A consensus has yet to emerge, however, about the direction for future research including the challenge of measurement and the importance of methodological flexibility. It is suggested that further research address some of these limitations by examining whether the impact of interventions vary depending n cognitive ability and to continue to assess how arts interventions can be of use across the stages of dementia

Establishing a new UK finance escalator for innovative SMEs: the roles of the Enterprise Capital Funds and Angel Co-investment Fund

This paper examines UK public policy addressing the seed and early stage equity finance gap since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Drawing on lessons learned from recent studies of UK and international government equity schemes, two contemporary models of government backed equity finance are examined. The focus is on the Enterprise Capital Funds (ECFs) and the Angel Co-investment Fund (ACF), the UK government’s main schemes operating in the sub-£2m equity finance gap to address the capital requirements for developing the UK’s young, potential high growth businesses. The paper highlights the shortcomings of traditional interim fund performance analysis and presents current demand and supply side evidence that establishes that these schemes are making attributable impacts on their portfolio businesses and the wider UK economy. It also demonstrates that they are playing important roles in the establishment of a new post GFC UK finance escalator. However, whilst these schemes were found to be currently complementary and effective, their future roles within the UK’s evolving post GFC seed and early stage equity markets are also considered. Key Words: Government Equity Schemes, Venture Capital, Potential High Growth SME