Professor Shearer West, the AHRC’s Director of Research, appeared last week at a University of Cambridge debate on whether ‘we are entering an age of austerity for the arts.’ The debate, part of the university’s annual Festival of Ideas, was open to the public and also featured Peter Florence, director of the Hay festival, Gill Bloomfield, of Arts and Business and Sue Hoyle, director of the Clore Leadership Programme. The debate was recorded by the Guardian, one of the sponsors of the event, and a podcast has now been made available.

In her speech Professor West outlined the range of activities that arts and humanities researchers were currently engaged in outside of the academy, including supporting policy-makers, attracting inward investment, improving public services such as those provided by museums, archives, libraries and – perhaps ‘their most important contribution’, said Professor West - their work to improve the country’s quality of life. She continued: ‘Arts and humanities researchers contribute directly to the intellectual life of the UK, to divergent thinking, tolerance. This happens through their public engagement activities, through researchers working with the media, community history, public lectures, exhibitions, debates and so on.’

Professor West concluded by calling on the arts and humanities research community to move beyond the ‘polarised debate around impact and instead to ‘own the idea of impact... to get behind it to the things that lie behind which we do value and which can help foster a flourishing rather than an austere future.’

To access the podcast please go to the Guardian website.