Investment Principles Resource Hub

Being ambitious and committed to improving the quality of your work and measuring the results.

Dynamism is about responding to the challenges of the next decade.

Embedding environmental thinking in everything you do.

We want England’s diversity fully reflected in the individuals and organisations we support and the culture they produce.

Take a look at the Let’s Debate keynote for Ambition & Quality.

Take a look at the Let’s Debate keynote for Dynamism.

Take a look at the Let’s Debate keynote for Environmental Responsibility.

Take a look at the Let's Debate keynote conversation for Inclusivity & Relevance

Hear from voices across the sector and beyond about why Ambition & Quality matters.

Hear from voices across the sector and beyond about what Dynamism means to them.

Hear from voices across the sector and beyond.

Hear from voices across the sector and beyond about why Inclusivity & Relevance is important.

Tom Higham, Creative Director of Mediale, lifts the lid on the Arts Council’s Investment Principles

Learn how your organisation can use youth voice effectively to shape your work for, with and by children and young people through this comprehensive guide for the creative and cultural sector. Written by Lawrence Becko and Jennifer Raven, published with Sound Connections in 2020.

Ben Walmsley and Leila Jancovich reflect on their Evaluation Principles and an independent but related research project on failure.

Recipes for Success is a mini-series hosted by Georgia Attlesey, founder of Pudding. Hear from people working in creativity and culture about how they ensure their work is ambitious and always striving to be the highest quality possibly.   Featuring conversations with: Matthew Austin (Co-director of MAYK), Caro Boss (Communications Manager at Diverse City) and Sujatha Menon (Poet, writer and editor of Crowstep Journal)

John Knell from Counting What Counts reflects on how to use the Impact and Insight Toolkit, to address the Ambition and Quality Investment Principle. The toolkit helps you to measure and evaluate individual pieces of work in ways aligned with the Investment Principles, but it can also help you  measure ambition and quality overall. 

This case-study from Talawa Theatre Company reflects on how they've found working with the Impact and Insight Toolkit. More case studies can be found on the Impact and Insight Toolkit website.

This collection of resources has been developed by McKinsey, for organisations to consider their corporate purpose.

Co-CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust, Zak Mensah discusses how his organisation will emerge from the pandemic.

This mini publication from The Culture Capital Exchange offers a series of essays, poems and thought pieces, exploring creative leadership. Does it need to change, as a result of the pandemic? Responses come from all parts of the academic and cultural sector. This is about exploring some of the big ideas emerging from the pandemic, and exploring the parallels between 'dynamism' and 'creativity'. 

For our Investment Principles podcast, our special guests discuss how good leaders operate and how they embody, incorporate and push forward new models of leadership. In this episode, join our special guests as they discuss how good leaders operate and how do they embody, incorporate and push forward new models of leadership? 

Watch a new access-all-areas documentary into the world of The Underground Link Up (TULU)

Hear from voices across the sector and beyond about what Dynamism means to them.

Take a look at the Let’s Debate keynote for Dynamism.

From Julie's Bicycle, a dynamic library of climate justice resources for the arts and culture community. 

Julie's Bicycle have produced this guide to help you review and reduce the environmental impacts associated with touring your production.

How can you tour internationally, but minimise travel? Lift gathered a group of artists to explore new ways to work, exhibit and collaborate – the evaluation report is an interesting read for anyone working in touring.

An Arts Council funded, free to use set of carbon calculators from Julie’s Bicycle. These will allow you to measure the environmental impact of your organisation or activity. 

Commissioned by Massive Attack and produced by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, this report provides an invaluable resource for the live music and festival sectors, to support delivery of carbon reductions in line with the Paris Agreement and the UN-backed Race to Zero.  The Roadmap includes targets across a number of areas of emissions and suggested actions for different groups within the sector.

Produced by Chrysalis Arts, this guide aims to support artists in adapting their creative practice to become more environmentally responsible, or address environmental issues more directly in their work. 

Darren Henley shares our response to an independent assessment, and highlights what our next steps are.

Read more about the Arts Council's Inclusion Review, which was commissioned by our National Council in 2022.

These toolkits, from the Contemporary Visual Arts Network, aim to encourage the development of work towards a fairer, more equitable sector, helping to translate theory into action in the visual arts.

For our Investment Principles podcast, our special guests discuss how we measure relevance, do we know the relevance when we see it or hear it and how do we make relevance a dynamic part of our practice so that what we create really finds connection with our audience. In this episode, our special guests discuss how do we measure relevance? Do we know the relevance when we see it or hear it? And how do we make relevance a dynamic part of our practice so that what we create really finds connection with our audience?

Hear from voices across the sector and beyond about why Inclusivity & Relevance is important.

Take a look at the Let's Debate keynote conversation for Inclusivity & Relevance