About SIAP
The Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) is a research group at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice in Philadelphia. We began in 1994 to ask questions about and develop methods to examine the impact of the arts and culture on community life. Our research focuses on the relationship of the arts to community change, with a particular interest in strategies for arts-based neighborhood revitalization, social inclusion, and community wellbeing.
SIAP believes that if the arts and culture do, in fact, have an important role in improving the lives of ordinary people, we should be able to measure it. We use the tools of social research to examine the intersections between cultural engagement, social structure, community development, and public policy.
The arts and culture represent an important dimension of social inclusion and community wellbeing. They provide a resource that people can use to make sense of the world as it is and to imagine the future. In addition, communities with a vital cultural life also enjoy a variety of “spillover effects,” including stronger community and civic engagement, improvements in public health and social stability, and economic revitalization. SIAP’s purpose is to understand and document these connections and the role that public policy and philanthropy can play in encouraging them.