Network launched to help Canada’s cultural sector navigate the digital world
From left: Professor Nishan Canagarajah, Aga Khan Museum Board Director, Zainub Verjee and Professor Ross Parry, Director of the Institute for Digital Culture.
Canada’s cultural sector is being given a helping hand to adapt to a digital world following the establishment of an expert research network, overseen by the UK’s University of Leicester.
The Digital Culture Research Observatory (Canada) was officially launched at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, on Friday 1 November.
The Observatory is one of several recently launched around the world. Each bring together a country or region’s cultural organisations, professional bodies, policy makers, communities of practice and researchers in the area of digital culture to identify where their collective work can best be focused.
The Observatories have been set up by the University of Leicester’s Institute for Digital Culture, which was launched in 2022 with the aim of building the digital capability of the culture sector, through strategic partnership and inter-disciplinary research.
Canada’s Research Observatory launch was presided over by Leicester’s President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nishan Canagarajah, and Aga Khan Museum Board Director, Zainub Verjee.
Professor Canagarajah said: “I wish to congratulate everyone involved in this fantastic initiative which will, like this fantastic museum, place the arts front and centre in the way we view the world. Through collaboration, much can be achieved and this Observatory will bring together hearts and minds for the good of humanity.”
The Canadian visit also saw Professor Canagarajah and colleague Professor Ross Parry, Director of the Institute for Digital Culture, tour the Toronto studios of digital design agency, Surface Impression. The agency’s CEO, Dr Peter Pavement, and director, Dr Amy Hetherington, both received their doctorates in digital culture from Leicester’s School of Museum Studies.
Dr Pavement was later awarded a Fellowship of Leicester’s Institute for Digital Culture at a dinner held for some of the region’s culture and digital leaders. The The Fellowship was in recognition for his on-going commitment to research collaboration with the University and its strategic research priorities in the area of digital culture.
The Leicester delegation also held an alumni reception for Leicester graduates in museum studies, cultural heritage and digital culture who continue to make an impact on the sector in Canada.