Social spatial diffusion and the regional impact of NGOs in the
European Capitals of Culture 2021 (CC2021) Timișoara and Novi Sad is a Post-doctoral research project funded by the Ministry of Research and Innovation, CNCS – UEFISCDI, within PNCDI III Project number PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2019-0274
Project acronym: NOVITIM21
Duration: september 2020 – august 2022
Project description:
The aim of our project is to analyse the social spatial diffusion and the
regional impact of NGOs in the European Capitals of Culture 2021
Timișoara and Novi Sad. The specific objectives of this study are:
O1: to analyse the spatial diffusion of the NGOs acting in the field of
culture, in the regions of Timisoara (Banat) and Novi Sad (Vojvodina)
in the year 2021;
O2: to estimate the area of cultural influence of Timisoara and Novi
Sad on their regions, via the spectrum NGOs activities;
O3: to measure the impact of the cultural NGOs actives in 2021 in
Timișoara and Novi Sad upon the transfiguration of the urban public
spaces;
O4: to evaluate the spatial magnetism of the Capital of Culture 2021
events developed by NGOs at regional level.
Following, these objectives, we propose four hypothesis:
H1: The spatial diffusion of cultural NGOs is gradually decreasing from
the regional poles to the peripheral areas;
H2: the medium-sized towns and the rural area are facing a lack of
initiatives and resources, becoming dependent on the regional poles
“export” of cultural activities;
H3: The NGOs in Timisoara and Novi Sad prefer to revive forgotten
spaces, in contrast to already consecrated cultural spaces;
H4: The NGOs’ activities attract two opposite spheres: the local and
the international public, but the regional public is missing.
The implementation of the objectives brings the following innovative
instruments:
- an analysis of the implementation of cultural NGOs activities in two
different governance systems; - a quantifiable overview of the cultural NGOs on the regional map,
aiming to stress on the desertification of cultural effervescence in the
smaller towns and in rural areas; - it maps the alternative/creative or reconverted urban spaces and
point the available spaces (”cultural physical stock”) for future cultural
activities - two GIS methods to estimate the spatial regional diffusion indices of
the NGOs and the cultural magnetism of the cities.