Creating Futures: Rethinking Cultural Institutions, Infrastructure, and Investment

Cultural funders and public institutions around the world are confronting the limits of conventional investment models and governance frameworks with growing recognition that existing systems—across public, private, and philanthropic sectors—are not always aligned with current realities or future needs. This moment demands deeper collaboration, mutual learning, and renewed imagination across regions and sectors to shape more inclusive, sustainable, and responsive cultural infrastructure.  

This program will offer a vital platform for strategic dialogue, reflective practice, and cross-regional exchange, designed to surface practical insights, strengthen relationships, and support the cultural ecosystems of the future.

• Expanding the Definition of Cultural Infrastructure: Exploring how cultural ecosystems are supported through informal networks, civic-led initiatives, and hybrid models alongside formal institutions, and how this broader understanding can inform more inclusive and effective infrastructure strategies. 

• Designing Sustainable and Context-Driven Investment Models: Examining how funders, governments, and private actors can adopt ethical, locally anchored, and context-responsive funding strategies that reduce reliance on external donors and support long-term cultural sovereignty, equity, and resilience. 

• Rethinking Institutional Governance and Accountability: Investigating alternative models of leadership, ownership, and decision-making within cultural institutions, and identifying governance approaches that are more transparent, participatory, and responsive to evolving societal needs. 

• Aligning Cultural Infrastructure with Global Development Goals: Exploring how cultural systems contribute to broader development agendas—such as education, equity, sustainability, and peacebuilding—and how they can be more strategically integrated into global policy frameworks.

This program offers a rare opportunity for stakeholders across sectors: 

• Insight Generation: A collective knowledge product such as a Salzburg Statement, a policy brief or investment guide outlining emerging principles and promising practices in cultural infrastructure. 

• Strategic Alignment: Deeper understanding among donors and policymakers of what is needed to support sustainable, sovereign and equitable cultural ecosystems. 

• Funder Learning and Peer Exchange: Structured opportunities for philanthropic and public funders to reflect on their own strategies and build collaborative approaches. 

• Network Activation: Strengthened global networks of cultural institutions, intermediaries, and funders committed to rethinking cultural investment and systems design.

This hybrid program will build new insights and aggregate perspectives and experiences from different parts of the creative and cultural sectors. Participants will:

EXPERIENCE...
•    A candid and open exchange with peers under the Chatham House Rule.
•    A retreat-like setting, with time and space to disconnect and reflect from a wider ecosystem and gain perspective.

GAIN...
•    Connection to an active international community of outstanding leaders working on this topic.
•    Inspiration and learning from across the world and foresight into directions for future work.
•    Relationships for coalition building across organizational, professional and geographical boundaries.
•    Access to a vast network of Salzburg Global Fellows working across sectors to shape a better world.

GIVE AND RECEIVE...
•    Promising practices and drawing on the group’s collective intelligence and experience to tackle challenges you face and leverage important opportunities.
•    Information about projects, approaches, resources and case studies relevant to this topic.
•    Opportunities for peer mentoring on ways to incubate, replicate, adapt and scale good practices.

This program will convene 40-45 participants from diverse creative fields and will prioritize participants from across the Majority World, including Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of the Middle East, including: 

• Leaders of cultural institutions and networks; 

• Representatives of public cultural ministries and regional bodies; 

• Philanthropic foundations and development agencies; 

• Cultural intermediaries working at the systems level; 

• Creative economy strategists and policymakers. 

Salzburg Global is dedicated to creating inclusive, international, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational programs. We prioritize participation of individuals from communities historically less visible in the arts and culture sector, we will actively seek to represent people of color, disabled individuals, those who identify as LGBTQ+, and participants from low-income, Indigenous, ethnically diverse, or migrant backgrounds. 

*Majority World: We use this term to deliberately shift focus to the fact that the majority of the world’s population lives outside of the wealthiest, traditionally Western countries, primarily referring to countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of the Middle East. It is intended to reframe perspectives to recognize the diversity, innovation, and critical viewpoints from these regions without reinforcing outdated hierarchies. 

**LGBTQ+: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer+. This term is widely recognized in human rights discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity in many parts of the world. It is intended to be inclusive of other cultural concepts, contemporary or historical, that express sexuality, gender, intersex, and gender non-conforming identities.

Programs at Salzburg Global are co-designed with participants who work together to determine the program agenda. Participants should be available for the following dates:-

• Co-Creation Meeting 1 (Online) March 19th 2026, 15:00 to 16:30 CET

• Co-Creation Meeting 2 (Online) March 26th 2026, 15:00 to 16:30 CET

• In-Person Program (Salzburg, Austria) April 13th (from 15:00) to 18th (departure), 2026

• Online meetings in 2026

1. UNESCO's flagship report Re|Shaping Policies for Creativity: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/creators-face-projected-global-revenue-losses-24-2028-new-unesco-report-shows
    
2. No Country Has Done This Right / On the Difference Between Institutions and Infrastructure by Emil Kang: https://open.substack.com/pub/emilkang/p/no-country-has-this-right?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
    
3. Infrastructure, institutions and intermediaries: rethinking the foundations of the cultural and creative ecosystem by Avril Joffe: https://fondation-hicter.org/fr/infrastructures-institutions-et-intermediaires-repenser-les-fondements-de-lecosysteme-culturel-et-creatif/
    
4. Culture as Foundational by Luca Calafati, Julie Froud, Abi Gilmore, Justin O’Connor and Karel Williams: https://foundationaleconomy.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/culture-as-foundational-paper-final.pdf
    
5. Property, Wealth & Cultural 'Industries'; We Don't Talk Enough About Land. by Amahra Spence: https://amahraspence.substack.com/p/property-wealth-and-cultural-industries
    
6. The Public Value of Arts and Culture: Investing in Arts and Culture to Reimagine Economic Growth in the 21st Century by Mariana Mazzucato: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/sites/bartlett/files/2026-02/Public%20Value%20of%20Arts%20and%20Culture.pdf
    
7. More Than Funding: Rethinking Sustainability for Art and Culture by Antonia Baumgartner: https://www.salzburgglobal.org/newsroom/latest-news/more-than-funding-rethinking-sustainability-for-art-and-culture
    
8. 2025 Creating Futures Session Report by Salzburg Global: https://www.salzburgglobal.org/topics/culture/culture-arts-and-society/creating-futures-art-of-narrative?L=/en/
    
9. 2024 Creating Futures Session Report by Salzburg Global: https://salzburgglobal.shorthandstories.com/creating-futures-art-and-ai-for-tomorrows-narratives/
    
10. Giving Ownership Back to Communities: Placemaking Lessons From a Block Party by Elaine Yeung: https://www.salzburgglobal.org/newsroom/latest-news/giving-ownership-back-to-communities-placemaking-lessons-from-a-block-party
     
11. The Theater for Transformative Action: A New Model for Collective Democracy by André Biveti, Cazmir Zaborowski, Samira Ben Ali, and Toninio Waelkens: https://www.salzburgglobal.org/newsroom/latest-news/the-theater-for-transformative-action-a-new-model-for-collective-democracy
     
12. The European Network on Cultural Management and Policy | December 2025 Issue: The Future is Cultural: https://encatc.org/media/8477-encatc-magazine_issue10december-2025.pdf#page=01
     
13. The 2005 UNESCO Convention in its 20th Anniversary: Towards a Protocol Addressing the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in the Digital Environment? by Andrés Muñoz Cárcamo: https://avantgardelawyers.org/blog/2005-unesco-convention-anniversary/
     
14. Welcome to the Post-Naive Internet Era by Severin Matusek, Nick Houde and Paloma Moniz: https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/nothing-personal/the-post-naive-internet-era/
     
15. Cultural Capital: The state of museums and their investing by Upstart Co-Lab: https://upstartco-lab.org/cultural-capital-the-state-of-museums-and-their-investing/
     
16. The Guide: what cultural institutions need to know about investing for values and mission by Upstart Co-Lab: https://upstartco-lab.org/what-cultural-institutions-need-to-know-about-imp-inv/
     
17. Conversation Changers: Using AI to Solve Bias and Preserve Ancestral Knowledge with Malik Afegbua by Salzburg Global: https://youtu.be/uQxziHqdjjo?si=CvkBsEqkHJAoLbxo
     

18. Conversation Changers: AI's Impact on Education and Creativity with Jasvin Bhasin by Salzburg Global: https://youtu.be/QSOb-a2kIu0?si=q_8kGqisxYRHf1Ry

     

19. Conversation Changers: Navigating the New Frontier of AI and Creativity with Micaela Mantegna by Salzburg Global: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSGPvCtn3MI&list=PLDHdHq7oPbv4zGrIJJDjoaJ92jTjjZZpQ&index=12