Culture Strategy

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Sheffield Culture Strategy now available for download!


We’re delighted to announce that the Sheffield Culture Strategy is now complete and available for download. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed their time, insights, and ideas throughout the consultation process—your input has been invaluable in shaping this vision for our city’s cultural future. Please stay tuned, as we’ll be sharing the next steps and upcoming opportunities to get involved next week.

Sheffield Culture Strategy

Sheffield Culture Audit Report

Sheffield Engagement Report


Sheffield Culture Strategy 2024: a new vision for creativity in the city

Sheffield is a city filled with inspiring artists, makers, and doers. Our artists, musicians, and designers are known around the world, but those who live here understand that thousands of incredible creatives across our communities and neighbourhoods are simply getting on with their work. We recognise that, as a city, there is much more we can do to support these individuals in flourishing.

With this in mind, we have developed a fresh vision for creativity, arts, and culture in Sheffield. We hope this vision will ensure that everyone who lives, works, or visits here has the opportunity to participate, collaborate, and benefit from the many wonderful contributions that arts and culture bring to our city.

As part of this process, we initiated a citywide consultation on culture, engaging with Sheffield’s creative community to shape the new culture strategy. Following our initial "pre-engagement" survey conducted in December 2023, we gathered valuable insights that informed a comprehensive engagement process.

We are pleased to announce that the strategy is now complete and will be published here following discussion in the Economic Development and Skills committee meeting on the 31st October. Further details will be shared alongside this information on the week commencing 4th November.

The Culture Strategy has been commissioned by Sheffield City Council, the University of Sheffield, and Arts Council England, and has been delivered by the creative consultancy Fourth Street, Sheffield-based social enterprise Opus Independents, and a team of cultural freelancers from the city.

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated in the consultation process. Your insights, feedback, and contributions have been invaluable in shaping the Sheffield Culture Strategy. We appreciate the time and effort you dedicated to sharing your perspectives, which will help us create a vibrant and inclusive cultural landscape for our city. Thank you for being an essential part of this journey!

What We Hope the Culture Strategy Will Achieve for the City

To create a healthy cultural sector in the future, we believe the new strategy needs to:

  • Uncover and celebrate our shared story of Sheffield’s culture and creativity.
  • Foster conditions that allow organisations and creatives to thrive, collaborate, and participate, while enhancing the infrastructure and resources available in the city.
  • Outline necessary changes so that young people can envision a future in Sheffield’s cultural landscape, with clear pathways to develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.
  • Provide insight into how any organisation, individual, or group can collaborate and participate in a growing and vibrant ecosystem of cultural work that serves communities and neighbourhoods throughout Sheffield.

This page will continue to be regularly updated with new information, questionnaires, and dates for upcoming cultural events in the city—we would love for you to stay engaged with us!

Sheffield Culture Strategy now available for download!


We’re delighted to announce that the Sheffield Culture Strategy is now complete and available for download. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed their time, insights, and ideas throughout the consultation process—your input has been invaluable in shaping this vision for our city’s cultural future. Please stay tuned, as we’ll be sharing the next steps and upcoming opportunities to get involved next week.

Sheffield Culture Strategy

Sheffield Culture Audit Report

Sheffield Engagement Report


Sheffield Culture Strategy 2024: a new vision for creativity in the city

Sheffield is a city filled with inspiring artists, makers, and doers. Our artists, musicians, and designers are known around the world, but those who live here understand that thousands of incredible creatives across our communities and neighbourhoods are simply getting on with their work. We recognise that, as a city, there is much more we can do to support these individuals in flourishing.

With this in mind, we have developed a fresh vision for creativity, arts, and culture in Sheffield. We hope this vision will ensure that everyone who lives, works, or visits here has the opportunity to participate, collaborate, and benefit from the many wonderful contributions that arts and culture bring to our city.

As part of this process, we initiated a citywide consultation on culture, engaging with Sheffield’s creative community to shape the new culture strategy. Following our initial "pre-engagement" survey conducted in December 2023, we gathered valuable insights that informed a comprehensive engagement process.

We are pleased to announce that the strategy is now complete and will be published here following discussion in the Economic Development and Skills committee meeting on the 31st October. Further details will be shared alongside this information on the week commencing 4th November.

The Culture Strategy has been commissioned by Sheffield City Council, the University of Sheffield, and Arts Council England, and has been delivered by the creative consultancy Fourth Street, Sheffield-based social enterprise Opus Independents, and a team of cultural freelancers from the city.

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated in the consultation process. Your insights, feedback, and contributions have been invaluable in shaping the Sheffield Culture Strategy. We appreciate the time and effort you dedicated to sharing your perspectives, which will help us create a vibrant and inclusive cultural landscape for our city. Thank you for being an essential part of this journey!

What We Hope the Culture Strategy Will Achieve for the City

To create a healthy cultural sector in the future, we believe the new strategy needs to:

  • Uncover and celebrate our shared story of Sheffield’s culture and creativity.
  • Foster conditions that allow organisations and creatives to thrive, collaborate, and participate, while enhancing the infrastructure and resources available in the city.
  • Outline necessary changes so that young people can envision a future in Sheffield’s cultural landscape, with clear pathways to develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.
  • Provide insight into how any organisation, individual, or group can collaborate and participate in a growing and vibrant ecosystem of cultural work that serves communities and neighbourhoods throughout Sheffield.

This page will continue to be regularly updated with new information, questionnaires, and dates for upcoming cultural events in the city—we would love for you to stay engaged with us!

  • CLOSED: This survey has concluded.

    We are excited to continue the conversation around a new strategy for Sheffield’s cultural and creative sectors with this survey.

    Our work so far has involved research on existing spaces, organisations, and programmes across the culture, creative, and community sectors and beyond. 

    We have also brought together hundreds of creatives through our engagement programme over the past few months. This has involved individual artists and freelancers, small and large creative and community organisations, and the city’s major institutions among others. This is not a Sheffield City Council strategy, but a sector for the city and its valuable creative and cultural sectors. It can only work if it is co-created and gets broad buy-in.

    The messages we have been hearing through this engagement have informed this survey, including the draft Creative Missions that you will see within it.

    These missions respond to the huge opportunities for Sheffield’s growth in the future, as well as some of the major challenges faced by the sector today.

    Please let us know how you feel about them, alongside responses to our other questions - this is an important opportunity to get involved.. We’d love to hear your thoughts, and expect the missions to evolve in response to feedback.

    The responses we receive will help us to finalise a draft strategy over the coming months, that will get into more detail on the precise actions needed to deliver on these missions.

    We look forward to hearing from you.

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Page last updated: 22 Nov 2024, 01:50 PM