User:Colinandrewmercer

Colin Mercer 

Colin Mercer is a British and Australian academic, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant and commentator in the fields of cultural studies, cultural theory, and cultural policy. He was born in Rustington, Sussex, in 1952. Attending Rustington County Primary School (now Rustington Community School), and then Andrew Cairns County Secondary Modern School for Boys (now part of Littlehampton Community School) where he matriculated and went to Portsmouth Polytechnic (now University of Portsmouth) in 1971. Completing a 4 year Honours degree there (including one year in Paris) he graduated with First Class Honours in English and French in 1975 and went on to full-time postgraduate studies towards a MA and PhD at Essex University from 1976-79, taking his first academic position as a Research Assistant to the Popular Culture Course Team at The Open University from 1980-1984. In 1984 he was invited as a Visiting Fellow to Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia and stayed on there as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Associate Professor until returning to the UK with his family in 1998. He and his family became naturalised citizens of Australia during that period.

Having developed a national and international profile in cultural studies and cultural theory in the late 1970s and early 80s, it was at Griffith University that Colin Mercer began to develop his skills in cultural policy - including areas such as urban cultural mapping, planning, and policy - as first Deputy Director (1987-1991), and then Director (1991-95), of the University's newly-established Institute for Cultural Policy Studies. His field work in cultural policy in Australia included developing the country's first city-wide cultural policy and development strategy for Brisbane City Council in 1991, the first regional cultural policy framework for 21 local government authorities, State and Federal Governments in 1993 (Cultural Development in South East Queensland), the first national survey of users and non-users of State and Public Libraries for the Cultural Ministers' Council (Navigating the Economy of Knowledge, 1995) followed by a national strategic planning and policy framework for libraries in the digital age (2020 Vision: Towards the Libraries of the Future, 1996) and the first national indigenous cultural policy framework for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC Draft Cultural Policy Framework, 1995). Returning to the UK in 1998, he became the UK's first full Professor of Cultural Policy and Director of the Cultural Policy and Planning Research Unit at The Nottingham Trent University; a position he occupied from 1999 until 2003 when he went freelance.

It was also at Griffith University that he developed his interests and skills in new interactive digital media platforms, content and policy including, more recently, social media. From 1995-96, on secondment from the University, he was Interim and Establishment CEO of QANTM Australia Co-operative Multimedia Centre Ltd., one of six such centres established from 1996 with national Creative Nation seed funding to grow the digital interactive media capacity of Australia by bringing together educational, creative, industry and government stakeholders in the field. Since then he has written and taught widely on the 'digital revolution' and its implications for cultural and creative practice, experience, and policy.

He is based in Bristol in South West England, a region in which he has worked extensively and, since 2009, has worked mostly overseas in Asia, Europe, North America and the Pacific Region. In both academic and freelance capacities he has has worked with and for a number of international agencies and foundations including The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, The Council of Europe, The European Commission, The European Cultural Foundation, The European Parliament, Interarts Foundation, The Secretariat for the Pacific Community, UNDP, and UNESCO. He is an Expert Advisor to the European Commission's Culture and URBACT II Programmes, a member of the Commission's European Expert Network on Culture (EENC), and of the Council of Europe/Compendium Expert Group on Cultural Participation Issues. He is an International Editorial Advisory Board Member for the journals New Formations: Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics (Lawrence & Wishart, London, http://www.newformations.co.uk/) and the online journal Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research (http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se/).

He has published widely in the fields of cultural policy, cultural studies and cultural theory and key publications include:

Sole Authored

Towards Cultural Citizenship: Tools for Cultural Policy and Development, Hedemora, Gidlunds Forlag, and Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, 2002. http://sites.google.com/site/colinmercer52/

Co-authored

Pacific Cultural Mapping, Planning and Policy Toolkit, with Katerina Teiwa, Secretariat for the Pacific Community, Nouméa, New Caledonia, 2011. http://sites.google.com/site/colinmercer52/

The Cultural Planning Handbook: An Essential Australian Guide, with David Grogan and David Engwicht, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1995.

Edited

Livability: Urban and Regional Quality of Life Indicators, Brisbane, Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University.

Convergence, Creative Industries and Civil Society: the new cultural policy, Culturelink Special Issue, Institute for International Relations, Zagreb, 2001.

Co-edited

Culture, Ideology and Social Process, with Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott, London, Croom Helm, 1982

Popular Television and Film, with Tony Bennett, Susan Boyd Bowman and Janet Woollacott, London, BFI and Open University Press, 1981

Popular Culture and Social Relations, with Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott, Boston and Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1986 and 1995.

Celebrating the Nation: A Critical Study of Australia's Bicentenary, with Tony Bennett, Patrick Buckridge, and David Carter, eds, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1992.

A 2009 keynote presentation in Berlin on the theme of 'Folk-Work-Place: Mapping and Profiling the Culture of a Region' can be found at http://vimeo.com/16648993