Introduction

Research and documentation consortia, another important component of the cultural policy research and information infrastructure, can provide a desirable level of collaboration by achieving economies of scale through the sharing of information and the development of common research frameworks and methodologies. Often these consortia provide the venue for the development of truly comparative research projects, which have a critical and growing role to play in cultural policy analysis as countries begin to turn to one another more frequently in search of policy and program models that might be adapted for their own purposes. Consortia are also subject to a great deal of criticism. A number of researchers in the field fear that the activities undertaken by the rapidly proliferating number of consortia are drawing energy and attention away from their primary work—to provide research and information services to the field of culture—toward a variety of nonproductive administrative and network-maintenance tasks.