The 23rd ENCATC on The Ecology of Culture: Community Engagement, Co-Creation, Cross-Fertilization took place in the city of Lecce in South Italy in October 2015. It brought together international researchers, policy makers, culture professionals and students in what turned out to be a very fruitful, lively and by no means exclusively European discussion forum. Academics, however, still dominated the event, with only few artist and cultural entrepreneurs present. It is certainly a matter of communication and cultural as well as political infrastructures to encourage them to get more involved, rather than staying the passive object of research.

The research topic of public participation in arts and culture is garnering ever-increasing international attention. A recent contribution to the international literature in this field is the German Handbuch Kulturpublikum, edited by Patrick Glogner-Pilz and Patrick S. Foehl (Handbook of Cultural Audiences. Research questions and findings). Comprised of chapters by 24 leading German scholars, this innovative resource provides a veritable encyclopedia of insight into the contemporary state of theory, methods, and practice as well as emerging international approaches to the field, thus offering the reader deep insight into what is a uniquely German scholarly lens.

The worldwide demand for qualified personnel in cultural institutions is great, yet the opportunities for advanced training are limited. For that reason, Goethe-Institut started in 2015 its international MOOC Managing the Arts. This review may give you some impressions.

Goethe Institut's first International Forum took place October 26 - November 6 in Munich, Germany. It brought together cultural experts from different regions of the world and different cultural sectors for a two-week intensive exchange phase. During this time, the participants got the opportunity to discuss current issues of cultural management, policy and administration. The global issues, ideas and skills brought forward during the forum reflect the opportunities and needs on professional competencies in the arts sector.

Three months after the 39th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, participants of the Young Experts Forum 2015 have initiated the online platform "Young Heritage Experts". The aim is to act as a think tank and deliver an unprecedented international networking platform for young experts and activists around the topics of UNESCO World Heritage Site.

With revenues of US$2,250 billion, Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) account for 3% of world GDP and employ 29.5 million people (1% of the worlds active population). This major contribution to the global economy is explained in a new study, jointly presented by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at UNESCOs headquarters in Paris, France, and published by EY (formerly Ernst & Young).

Alessia Usai from Italy and Annika Hampel from Germany were announced as the winners of the 2015 ENCATC Research Award on Cultural Policy and Cultural Management. The ENCATC Award targets emerging researchers in the field of cultural policy and cultural management up to 35 years of age from Europe and the rest of the world.

The South Netherlands Philharmonic (SNPh) is the result of severe cuts in Netherlands state subsidies for the arts. These cuts resulted in the merger of two former orchestras into the SNPh. The SNPh started in 2013 after extensive strategic financial and managerial approaches were made. At the beginning of its third season the new orchestra is now widely seen as a successful artistic body and a flourishing arts-institution with a close relationship to its region.

NCAR, the U.S. National Center for Arts Research, provides evidence-based insights into the national arts and cultural community. NCAR wants to enable their leaders to use data strategically to overcome challenges, transform their institutions in a sustainable way and increase impact. Marla Teyolia, Associate Director at NCAR, shows in this introduction that the research methods and tools provided by NCAR can be helpful for every arts leader to measure and improve the work of her organization, even if not situated in the U.S.

Although already from 2013, this contribution hasn't lost any of it's relevance and can be transferred to a lot of countries at least in the western world. Nesta's Manifesto for the Creative Industries proposes ten system recommendations for a fresh policy that establishes the creative industries as a serious economic force throughout Europe and beyond.

Still, information gaps exist. For instance, relevant, up-to-date and publicly accessible online information on arts and culture and their professional management can still prove hard to find for some regions and countries. Anupama Sekhar presented culture360.asef.org, an online portal on arts and culture focusing on Asia and Europe to address this knowledge gap, at the ENCATC Annual Conference 2014.

Egypt has a vibrant, internationally inspired independent scene with dedicated employees. In contrast, the traditional culture is financially shabbily treated and reglemented by the state. In the light of censorship, centralization and a lack of professionalism in cultural management the cultural sector could hardly make any impact on its content. The Goethe-Institut wants to change that with specialized and adequate trainings.

n Iraq, cultural managers are needed to ensure that the cultural sector can grow again and fulfill its tasks in the aftermath of the war, during the development of a new governmental system and against the terrorism of the fundamentalist Islamic State. Culture in Iraq contributes to the development of education, community values, and openness more actively than it is often the case in the Western world.

SIETAR is one of the largest association of specialists who research and teach the skills necessary to develop a diverse, participatory environment, and help people to operate professionally in it. The aim of its last conference, which took place from May 21st to 23rd in Valencia, Spain, was to broach the issue of the interfaces and cultures of arts, economy, society, policy, and education to reshape intercultural discourses and question current cultural paradigms. 350 interculturalists left the Congress with a bag full of inspiring ideas.

The German arts management professor Birgit Mandel visited two arts management programs in the USA and attended the main conference of AAAE, the Association for Arts Administration Educators at Universities and Colleges, that took place April 16-18, 2015 in Portland. There, she realized several aspects of managing arts that contradict the European presumption of the arts sector in the US.

Peter Gelb is General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera, one of the worlds largest and most complex arts organizations. Since his inauguration in 2006, he launched a number of new projects to attract new and younger audiences. But the debts are still growing and as the Met is the most lavish privately financed opera house in the world, the opinion of the wealth and patronaging older opera lovers play an important role when it comes to management decisions.

Money for publicity: this over-simplistic marketing principle that underlies any sponsorship agreement is increasingly losing its attractiveness for corporate communications. Today, entrepreneurial cultural engagement is less about image or about customer loyalty than it is about the central asset of trust. Hence, the idea of corporate cultural engagement has to be rethought.

The Institute for Cultural Concepts Hamburg talked with Christina Gleich about the status of cultural politics and management in Ecuador.

The latest ADESTE report presents the knowledge, skills, competences, and personal attributes of an "Audience Developer". Based on interviews, national, European, and international focus groups, the project gained first-hand insights from experts and practitioners active in the field of arts, culture, training and education in 11 countries.

The Culture Invest Congress calls itself the "largest industry get-together for cultural institutions and culture investors". Well, with over 50 presenting partners, 100 presentations and 36 panel discussions, all crammed into 2 intensive days, it may very well be the largest in Europe. More than anything else, the congress was an opportunity, as usual, to network and find out who is doing what and how.