Bradford City of Culture 2025 – AMION appointed to lead Economic Impact and Value for Money Assessment
AMION Consulting has been appointed to undertake the official Economic Impact and Value for Money Assessment of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture runs from January 2025 to December 2025 and is a celebration of Bradford city and district, taking place across its city, towns, villages and greenspaces. It is set to have a lifelong impact, through its reshaping of the local curriculum, skills and training programmes, investment in existing and new creative spaces, and opening up opportunities for cultural participation. It is helping to make Bradford one of the most welcoming places in the UK for artists, producers and creative entrepreneurs to flourish, through international exchanges, development programmes and investment in new cultural hubs.
AMION’s two-year study will include quantifying local spending, employment, volunteering, funding, image, and other impacts of Bradford 2025, all in compliance with the HM Treasury Green and Magenta Books. The commission also includes the development of social cost benefit analysis, together with the wider qualitative social impacts arising from the Bradford City of Culture.
This research builds on AMION’s enviable track record in this field, which includes the evaluation of Coventry City of Culture, economic impact assessment of Liverpool’s hosting of Eurovision, and evaluation of Historic England’s High Street Heritage Action Zone programme.
The AMION-led team includes specialist inputs from longstanding partners, Simetrica-Jacobs, and Spirul. Simetrica-Jacobs will consult with stakeholders to design a contingent valuation survey using the sector-leading online survey platform, Qualtrics. Spirul will undertake a programme of in-person visitor surveys to collect the data for the impact assessment.
Our team is working closely with Bradford 2025 and its evaluation and research partners, including the University of Bradford, to ensure our assessments are robust, credible and useable for accountability, learning, and legacy. As part of this, we are also collaborating with Making Impact Matter who are leading the Social Value Assessment of Bradford 2025, to ensure these innovative bottom-up insights are incorporated into our findings. Together, our findings will represent the full Economic and Social Value Impact Assessment (ESVIA) for Bradford 2025.
To explore the Bradford 2025 event programme, click here: Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture
For further information on AMION’s commission, please contact Matthew Budd (matthewbudd@amion.co.uk).