State of Culture 2026 | Report Launch
Join us for the launch of State of Culture 2026, Culture Action Europe’s biennial report on cultural policy across Europe.
Two years ago, the State of Culture report asked whether culture could be heard at all. Since then, culture’s value has rarely been stated this clearly, or this often, by European institutions, culminating in the European Commission’s own Culture Compass at the end of 2025. But recognition was only the starting condition. This year’s edition of the State of Culture asks the harder question: now that culture has been heard, what is it actually allowed to do?
The report’s core finding is a contradiction the sector already knows in its bones: culture’s value is praised more than ever, yet protected less than ever. Culture is a public good in every EU institution’s vocabulary, yet still governed, funded and evaluated as though it were an industrial output and measured in projects, KPIs and short cycles rather than the years-long relationships actual cultural work is made of.
State of Culture Report 2026 is a demand for agency. Despite — and because of — persistent underfunding, precarious working conditions and external pressure, the cultural sector is asking not simply to participate in Europe’s future, but to help shape it. Agency means more than being consulted within predefined systems; it means having the freedom to ask why, not only how; believe in Europe’s future while questioning its chosen directions; to challenge concentrated technological power; and to build global cultural relationships on terms shaped together with artists and communities from across the world.
The report, authored by Elena Polivtseva, will be launched on 21 October 2026, following an online launch.
State of Culture 2026 Launch
21 October 2026
11.00 – 12.00 CEST