ABSTRACT
The Regional Observatory on Financing Culture in East-Central Europe (the "Budapest Observatory") is another of the new generation of cultural observatories. It was formed just recently so there is little to be concluded at this point. The Budapest Observatory was founded with seed money from UNESCO and given a very particular vocation: to assist those seeking information about the ways that cultural life, cultural activities, and cultural products are being financed in eastern and central European countries. In other words, it was formed to provide a place through which information could be gathered and shared as government cultural policies made the leap from life under Communism to life after Communism. Its goal is to facilitate research, collect and provide information, and establish contacts in a variety of areas including the financing of culture, the design of cultural policy, the drafting of legislation, and the collection of statistics.
