The UK was the first EC member state to select, in 1986, its European City of Culture (ECoC)nomination via a competition between cities. Glasgow won the nomination and subsequently became the first ‘post-industrial’ city to hold the ECoC title.

There has been a significant amount of research into the social, cultural and economic impactsof Glasgow’s year as ECoC in 1990. However, little is known about the origins of Glasgow’s approach.

With reference to new archival research and oral history interviews conducted with some of thekey decision-makers, the proposed paper will examine the strategies employed by Glasgow in developing its ECoC bid. It will examine the decision-making process and consider the roles played by key actors in the UK’s central government which resulted in Glasgow winning the nomination. It will also establish the broader national and European context and parameters which shaped Glasgow’s approach to ECoC.

The paper will argue that in 1986, the lack of formal cultural policy in Glasgow presented avacuum in the city’s ECoC bid strategy which was filled by the increasingly coherent economic development strategies developed for the city in the preceding years. Rather than culture leading regeneration, regeneration led ‘culture’.

Clare Edwards is currently completing a PhD in Cultural Policy in Glasgow 1970-1989 at the University of Glasgow, in collaboration with Glasgow Life (Glasgow’s City Council’s arms length external organisation for culture and sport) and funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council.