Participatory governance models are reshaping how museums engage with communities. But how do audiences and stakeholders value these strategies? This study develops a framework to assess participation through three perspectives—community views, institutional priorities, and resource allocation—revealing mismatches between expectations and the actual implementation of participatory practices.
Over the last few years, new governance strategies for cultural institutions based on participatory models –grounded on the active involvement of multiple actors in management, programming, production and innovation– have gained in importance. In contrast to traditional models of unidirectional management, this paradigm seeks to incorporate communities in decision making and other activities –areas previously confined to public entity professionals. Based on these premises, we evaluate these participatory strategies in a sample of museums, both from the demand side-assessing the value allocated by the community of a museum (users and beneficiaries) to the different dimensions of participation, and from the supply side, benchmarking operational strategies by managers, policy-makers and stakeholders involved directly in the museums.
As a case study, we took three museums that had developed participatory business models under a living labs strategy: the Hunt Museum in Limerick (Ireland), the Maritime National Museum in Tallinn (Estonia), and the Museo del Tessuto in Prato (Italy), as part of the RECHARGE Project (Resilient European Cultural Heritage as Resource for Growth and Engagement), funded by the European HORIZON 2.2 programme -Culture, creativity and inclusive society.
As regards the methodological approach, four dimensions were first identified to define the main areas of participation: (i) Collaborative co-governance, involving communities in institutional decision-making processes, with active collaboration and shared responsibility; (ii) Creative co-production, as regards co-creation actions of cultural content and programming with artists, audiences, and local actors; (iii) Social co-innovation, referring to collaborative actions oriented toward social inclusion, equity, and community well-being; and (vi) Technological co-innovation, engaging users and experts in developing new digital content, experiences, and tools. These dimensions are divided into four specific options or policies in each, ranked from the highest to the lowest degree of actor involvement, starting from a status quo situation. A fifth dimension is also added –a price vector– which serves as a payment vehicle to estimate the involved agents’ marginal willingness to pay for each of the dimensions.
On the demand side, two non-market valuation techniques –contingent valuation and discrete choice experiments– are used to estimate the value assigned by the museum community (users and beneficiaries) based on an economic valuation survey for a sample of 1,259 individuals from the cities where the museums are located (Limerick, Tallinn, and Prato), respectively.
Results show that communities value the traditional roles of museums and that they also are quite convinced about the possibilities of impacting social change. Nevertheless, over 62% of respondents would be willing to contribute, with an average of €64.59 per year to support participatory strategies in their local museum, expressing both the social legitimacy of this paradigm and the possibility of thinking about crowdfunding strategies to provide complementary funding mechanisms for museums. We also observed that museum “fanatics” (frequent visitors) were willing to contribute twice as much as casual users or non-goers, and that even non-goers showed a moderate willingness to pay, which is an expression of the existence value assigned by inhabitants of cities to their museums. Among the various dimensions of the participatory model, strategies related to social co-innovation received the highest levels of support, followed by those linked to technological co-innovation. In contrast, co-governance options were the least valued, indicating that citizens still place greater trust in museum-led cultural management and programming, even though they do express an interest in engaging with more tangible and clearly defined participatory actions.
Figure 1. Economic valuation of participatory dimensions and options (demand side)
On the supply side, an institutional sample of 96 stakeholders involved in each of the museums was identified, including managers and policymakers on the cultural programming side, creators and technologists involved in the cultural production stage, and museum providers and educators. We apply the analytic hierarchy process method, which allows us to obtain an optimal preference structure of participation strategies from the institutional side. Results showed that stakeholders tend to show less interest in collaborative co-governance, while favouring strategies linked to social co-innovation. Creative co-production and technological co-innovation occupied a middle ground in terms of preference. Options at an intermediate level –particularly those involving co-decision– were generally valued more positively. Among the most prominent strategies were initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, together with creative experiences and digitalization. Some differences emerge when the analysis is broken down by stakeholder group. Managers and policymakers tend to align with broader governance trends, showing a preference for options that emphasize technological innovation and long-term social programmes. In contrast, stakeholders in production and museum services place greater importance on the social dimension, particularly on initiatives that foster diversity and inclusion.
Figure 2. Overall preference structure by stakeholders (supply side)
Finally, the compared results from the demand and supply perspectives revealed that the value assigned by museum stakeholders largely mirrors that of the broader community; social and technological options are rated more highly than governance-related forms of involvement. This is an important result, since preferences revealed from museum community and stakeholders seem to be quite aligned. Nonetheless, we also carried out a complementary analysis to assess the current effort devoted by museums –measured in labour force (persons and/or weeks) and money investment– dedicated to the different dimensions of the participatory model. Here, results revealed a polarized pattern, with most of the effort being concentrated on governance options, and with less attention being given to social and technological aspects, in comparative terms. This clearly contrasts with the preferences of both communities and stakeholders and reflects a certain contradiction between what is proclaimed as being beneficial and what is ultimately implemented, demonstrating the slowness of institutions in adapting to these new models of governance.
Figure 3. Comparison of preference structure -supply and demand- and current effort by museum (harmonised units)
In conclusion, this research puts forward a methodological framework for evaluating participatory strategies in museums and offers valuable insights to support strategic decision making while also enabling managers to carry out self-assessments. The findings further highlight the importance of aligning evaluations and preferences on both the demand and supply sides of participation models, since such consistency strengthens institutional legitimacy and maximises the perceived social welfare.
About the article
Gómez-Zapata, J.D.; Del Barrio-Tellado, M.J.; Espinosa-Casero, F.; Herrero-Prieto, L.C. (2024): “I like participatory museums but, how much? Embedding demand-side value in assessing strategies”, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 96, 102111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2024.102111
Del Barrio Tellado, M. J., Espinosa-Casero, F., Gómez-Zapata, J. D., & Herrero-Prieto, L. C. (2025). Cultural policy evaluation: Benchmarking stakeholders’ preferences using the analytic hierarchy process technique. Ekonomiaz: Revista Vasca de Economía, 107(I), 198–229. https://doi.org/10.69810/ekz.1502 .
About the authors
María José del Barrio-Tellado is an associate professor at the Department of Finance and Accounting of the University of Valladolid, Spain
Fátima Espinosa-Casero is a predoctoral fellow at the Department of Applied Economics of the University of Valladolid, Spain
Jonathan Daniel Gómez-Zapata is an associate professor at the School of Economics of the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Luis César Herrero-Prieto is full professor at the Department of Applied Economics of the University of Valladolid, Spain
About the image
Alonso Berruguete, Sibilas, 1526-1532, Retablo Mayor de San Benito el Real, Valladolid, © Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid, CE0271/042 y CE0271/041. Use licensed to authors by the museum.
