Dear Colleagues,

We kindly invite you to submit your papers to this Special Issue before 30 September 2021.

The cultural sector has undergone multifaceted changes in recent years, leading to a competitive environment putting many organizations on the edge of a precipice; to be or not to be is the question. In the short term, they are bluntly struggling for survival and in the medium and long term they search for new relevance and sustainability. This long term blueprint primarily addresses cultural, social, environmental and economic impacts (among others; e.g., Biondi et al., 2020; Demartini et al. 2021, Gianecchini et al., 2018; Henche et al., 2020; Modzelewska et al., 2020). The current pandemic context unveils these fundamental issues in an unprecedented way. Cultural institutions are often forced to close their onsite places, to search innovative solutions and innovative strategies in order to ensure survival and sustainability (e.g., Agostino et al., 2020; Casanovas Rubio et al., 2020; Rivero Garcia et al., 2020).

This Special Issue addresses these challenges by searching for contributions on how innovation can support cultural institutions in their path towards sustainability, balancing the societal mission and the need to survive economically. In particular, we search for contributions addressing the following topics:

• New ideas and conceptualizations in order to develop and understand various dimensions of societal relevance of the cultural sector – going beyond main stream models of sensemaking.
• innovation in the sensemaking and business models for cultural institutions, considering how such models can be reconfigured to support a long-term sustainable path and addressing the manifold dimensions of cultural activities.
• innovation in the management and valorisation of the cultural activities, thanks to the contribution of digital technologies (such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality or augmented reality) and their impact on sustainability.
• innovation in the governance of cultural institutions, exploring how partnerships and participatory and co-creation practices can facilitate or hinder the path towards sustainability.
• innovation in measuring the performance of cultural institutions for more reflective and sustainable decision making;
• innovation in accounting for and communicating the impact of cultural institutions in terms of how cultural value can be understood, assessed and eventually measured. This includes the design and reflection of metrics, measures and tools to quantify the contribution of cultural activities for individual and societal well-being as well as economic development.

In particular, we encourage contributions highlighting the promises and perils of novel technologies in guiding sustainable cultural strategies. More general papers discussing the meaning of sustainability for cultural institutions and how management practices can support the path towards sustainability in these turbulent times are also welcome.

We encourage theoretical, conceptual and empirical submissions—including elaborated case studies—that can advance our current understanding of the management of innovation for sustainable cultural institutions (museums, performing arts organizations, cultural heritage sites, archives, libraries and others).

Dr. Deborah Agostino
Prof. Paola Demartini
Prof. Martin Piber
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• innovation
• digital innovation
• culture
• cultural participation
• museum
• performing arts
• sustainability
• business model
• innovation management
• performance measurement