Dr Beatriz García is the director of Impacts 08 – The Liverpool Model, a joint research programme involving the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University, which will assess the long term cultural, social, economic and environmental impacts of Liverpool becoming European Capital of Culture in 2008. Prior to this post, she was a Research Council UK (RCUK) academic fellow at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Glasgow, where she led a major research project looking into the long term cultural legacy of Glasgow becoming the 1990 European City of Culture.

Beatriz is an active researcher in cultural policy and event-led regeneration and is committed to establishing models for the longitudinal assessment of urban cultural impacts. Recent projects assess the legacy of cultural programming within major events such as the European Capital of Culture, the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games, attracting funding from research councils, government agencies and international NGOs.

Recent publications cover a wide range of journals including the International Journal of Cultural Policy, Local Economy, Urban Studies, Media, Culture and Society, as well as specialist magazines and edited monographs. She is currently writing a monograph about her research on the long-term legacy of Glasgow 1990 within Ashgate’s ‘Re-materialising Cultural Geography’ series.

Beatriz was a member of the Culture and Education Advisory Committee of the London 2012 Olympic Bid. In this position, she held monthly meetings with the committee chair, Jude Kelly, and had personal conversations with the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell (now Minister for the Olympics) and the Prime Minister wife, Cherie Blair. Beatriz is keeping her role as advisor to the Culture, Ceremonies and Education team within the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG). You can download a full CV here.