Nicolás Barbieri, lecturer and director of the Master's Degree in Cultural Management at the UIC Barcelona Faculty of Humanities, participated on 29 March in the conference titled Viejos nuevos modelos: Cuestiones pendientes en tiempos de urgencias (Old new models: Unfinished business in urgent times), held in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and promoted by the Instituto Canario de Desarrollo Cultural and the Pedro García Cabrera Foundation.

The conference was organised to address issues such as the regressive modernisation affecting artistic professions or the lack of institutional focus, and aimed to analyse current cultural policies and the “new model” of state intervention, in the search for solutions to the major issues of public management.

In his presentation entitled ‘Políticas culturales: de las desigualdades a la equidad’ (Cultural policies: from inequalities to equity), Barbieri spoke about cultural policies, commenting on the fact that despite the efforts of many people and institutions, they have not managed to resolve the significant inequalities that exist when it comes to cultural access and participation. “Factors such as the neighbourhood in which we live, gender, origin or level of education condition how we exercise our right to participate in the city’s cultural life. In response, our research indicates that equity must be adopted as a core value in our cultural policies”, said the lecturer.

Barbieri, whose research focuses on the analysis and evaluation of cultural policies, especially in the field of cultural rights and social inequalities, has carried out consultancy and training work for public and private institutions. He highlights equity as the way to resolve inequalities in accessing culture, understanding equity, in his words, as “specific interventions that aim to meet diverse cultural needs, whilst recognising the cultural capacities of people and communities”.