NEA Research Labs
Introduction
Through a series of awards, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has established a national program that permits transdisciplinary research teams, grounded in the social and behavioral sciences, to engage with the NEA's five-year research agenda. The National Endowment for the Arts Research Labs (NEA Research Labs) program will yield empirical insights about the arts for the benefit of arts and non-arts sectors alike.
Each of the NEA Research Labs will design a research agenda, conduct a program to implement its own agenda, and prepare reports and other products that contribute substantively to a wider understanding several areas of special interest to the National Endowment for the Arts. Sustained methods of inquiry into these topic areas will have distinctive benefits for the arts community, but also for sectors such as healthcare, education, and business or management. Our Labs cover the following topic areas, with more to come in alignment with our current Research Agenda:
Each of our Labs in “Arts, Health, and Well-Being" focus on research questions such as:
- What changes in physical or mental health outcomes are experienced by participants receiving arts-based interventions (e.g., via creative arts therapies or arts-in-health programs) to address various health conditions?
- How do changes in outcomes vary by age, socioeconomic characteristics, other demographic and behavioral patterns, and/or by health status?
- How do changes in outcomes compare with those achieved by other health and wellness strategies or interventions?
- What physiological or psychological mechanisms are activated by arts-based interventions in affecting health-related outcomes?
- What are the social, emotional, physiological, or physical health benefits of arts participation (including arts learning)?
- To what extent—and under what conditions—are specific art forms and activities invoked in positive relationships between arts participation and health and well-being?
- How do characteristics such as frequency, duration, or intensity of an arts-based intervention relate to individual or program-level outcomes?
- What is the comparative cost-effectiveness of an arts-based intervention and one or more non-arts-based interventions?
- How do arts-based interventions benefit caregivers or family members?
Each of our Labs on the “Arts, Cognition, and Learning ” focus on research questions such as:
- What are the cognitive, social or emotional, or physiological processes of arts participation—for various types of arts activity (including creating or performing art)— and how do they affect learning-related outcomes?
- How do learning-related outcomes associated with arts participation vary by age, socioeconomic characteristics, other demographic and behavioral patterns, and/or by health status or disabilities?
- How do these changes in outcomes compare with those achieved by non-arts approaches to learning (e.g., non-arts extracurricular programs; non-arts integrated curricula)?
- What changes in learning-related outcomes are associated with specific approaches to arts instruction in formal or informal settings?
Each of our Labs on the “The Arts, Economic Growth, and Civic or Business Innovation” focus on:
- What is the nature, direction, and strength of the relationship between the arts and economic and job growth? How has this relationship changed over time, and how does it differ by geography and industry?
- How do place-based investments in the arts contribute to local and regional economic outcomes?
- How do artists and arts organizations contribute measurably to innovation in the public and private sectors? What individual or organizational characteristics or behaviors can mediate these outcomes?
- How do formal and informal places of arts education—and the competencies they cultivate—contribute to innovation in the public and private sectors?
- In which industries, sectors, or geographic areas is it possible to measure economic outcomes from arts-led innovation, and how so?
- How do the benefits and related outcomes of arts-based entrepreneurship and innovation compare with those achieved by non-arts approaches?
- How does the presence of artists in the non-arts workforce influence the dynamics of the workplace and affect work products, including development of new technologies and other innovations?
The Labs
| Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| Boise State University, Boise, ID * The Arts, Economic Growth, and Civic or Business Innovation |
| Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| George Mason University, Fairfax, VA * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| Indiana University, Bloomington, IN * The Arts, Economic Growth, and Civic or Business Innovation |
| New York University, New York, NY * The Arts, Economic Growth, and Civic or Business Innovation |
| Northeastern University, Boston, MA * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| Rice University, Houston, TX * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| Texas A & M University, College Station, TX * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| University of California, San Diego, CA * The Arts, Cognition, and Learning |
| University of California, San Francisco, CA * The Arts, Cognition, and Learning |
| University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| University of Florida, Gainesville, FL * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA * The Arts, Economic Growth, and Civic or Business Innovation |
| University of Maryland, College Park, MD * The Arts, Cognition, and Learning |
| University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN * The Arts, Cognition, and Learning |
| University of Oregon, Eugene, OR * The Arts, Economic Growth, and Civic or Business Innovation |
| University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| University of South Florida, Tampa, FL * The Arts, Cognition, and Learning |
| University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX * The Arts, Economic Growth, and Civic or Business Innovation |
| University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI * The Arts, Economic Growth, and Civic or Business Innovation |
| Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
| Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN * The Arts, Cognition, and Learning |
| Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA * The Arts, Economic Growth, and Civic or Business Innovation |
| West Chester University of Pennsylvania, West Chester, PA * The Arts, Health, and Well-Being |
Convenings
NEA 2024 Research Labs Summit: Meet the Authors (June 4, 2024)
All-Labs Summit: Building and Sustaining Capacity for Arts Research (June 4, 2019)
As the federal agency of record on arts research, the National Endowment for the Arts, through its Office of Research & Analysis, produces accurate, relevant, and timely analyses and reports that reveal the conditions and characteristics of the U.S. arts ecosystem and the impact of the arts on our everyday lives. The NEA Research Labs add important cross-sector resources to the agency’s collection of publications such as Arts Participation Patterns in 2022: Highlights from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, funding opportunities such as Research Grants in the Arts, and producing other data resources. The NEA Research Labs initiative will help to fulfill milestones of a five-year research agenda, available on the National Endowment for the Arts website.