Heritage projects generate a wide range of benefits, however capturing their full value for both the economy and society remains a challenge.  

As such, the National Lottery Heritage Fund commissioned Simetrica-Jacobs to explore how robust economic valuation methods can be applied across its diverse portfolio of funded heritage projects. The work aimed to develop a consistent, scalable and rigorous framework to monetise the benefits for the economy and for society generated by heritage projects.

We developed and tested a comprehensive economic valuation framework, drawing on:

  • A literature review of valuation methods in the heritage and cultural sectors, including existing toolkits such as the AIM Economic Impact Toolkit1
  • Analysis of existing grantee data and evaluation reports, and
  • Application of methods to a selection of case study projects.

The framework includes methods to value:

  • benefits for the economy, or economic impact, e.g. to understand the contribution to local or national GDP (Gross Value Added, GVA) and number of jobs affected, and  
  • benefits for society, such as health benefits, wellbeing benefits or other public benefits.

The framework also introduced a tiered approach, ensuring that valuation methods remain robust, but proportionate and accessible for organisations of all sizes. This ensures consistency and comparability, while maintaining flexibility for different project types and sizes. Our work provided practical guidance, including suggested data points for collection, to help organisations across the sector strengthen their evidence base and demonstrate their impact more effectively. The Heritage Fund is now exploring how to take this framework forward so that they can better surface the social and economic value of their investments proportionately and accurately.

The study found that heritage projects can generate considerable benefits to the economy, particularly where they support jobs, attract visitors and stimulate local spending. Economic impact is strongest where projects create additional activity rather than displacement. GVA can be estimated robustly using the ONS output-per-job metrics, AIM Economic Impact Toolkit or bespoke modelling. Overall, it is also important that a strong narrative accompany the quantitative data on employment and contribution to GDP.

The study also found that heritage projects can generate substantial benefits to society. A range of different methods, as outlined within the HM Treasury Green Book, can be used to estimate their value, including the elicitation of willingness to pay (WTP) figures, valuing health benefits (using QALY method) or valuing wellbeing benefits (using WELLBY method).

Overall, this project demonstrates that it is both feasible and valuable to apply robust valuation methods to measure both the benefits for the economy and for society of heritage investment. A single method cannot capture the full benefits — different methods, accompanied by a solid narrative, are essential.

You can read the report here.