Statement on Current Media Reports Concerning the Financial Perspectives of RISM after 2025
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Over the past few days, reports and opinion pieces on the current and future situation of the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) have been circulating in various media. The catalyst was an article by Christiane Wiesenfeldt in the Feuilleton section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z.) published in print on 3 August 2024 (and online on 4 August), in which she addresses funding from the Akademienprogramm (Academies’ Programme of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities), which will stop at the end of 2025, and ongoing efforts to find a new source of federal and state funding to continue RISM’s global remit. Reference was also made to the prospect of partial funding from the German government’s Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (Bundesbeauftragte für Kultur und Medien, BKM), which has now been described as no longer viable in light of their budget situation.
Though this account is overall correct, various misunderstandings and erroneous conclusions arose that appeared elsewhere. In particular, some writers suggested that the Commissioner, Claudia Roth, seemed personally responsible for terminating funding, which is incorrect in two respects: the BKM is not currently involved in RISM’s funding, but rather the money is part of project funds within the Akademienprogramm that will expire in at the end of 2025 and comes from, among other sources, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research; and Claudia Roth has never explicitly dismissed the relevance of RISM and its suitability as a recipient of funding.
It is true that some time ago the possibility was raised of the BKM co-financing RISM after 2025 as part of a new structure of federal and state funding. This prompted the parties mentioned in the F.A.Z. article (a consortium consisting of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, the Bavarian State Library in Munich, the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden, the Berlin State Library, and the Association “Internationales Quellenlexikon der Musik e.V.”, among others) to hold talks on such a funding model. These discussions resulted in the pledges, mentioned in the article, of partial funding from the German federal states of Saxony, Bavaria, and Rhineland-Palatinate, subject to involvement from the federal government. On the basis of these encouraging results, the consortium once again entered into dialog with the BKM, which is proving to be very constructive despite the federal government’s tight budget situation. The email mentioned in the F.A.Z. article was a mere snapshot that gave rise to the very regrettable misunderstandings.
On behalf of the RISM Editorial Center and its sponsoring Association, our warmest thanks go to all the institutions and individuals who have supported the work of RISM in the past and are seeking funding opportunities for the future. We would like to request that this important and constructive process not be compromised by inaccurate or misleading representations in public forums. Our thanks also go to our musicology colleagues such as Christiane Wiesenfeldt and Arnold Jacobshagen. We are in constant communication with them and many others about our efforts and are happy that they are committed to publicly articulating the great interest the discipline has in maintaining RISM.
We hope that this statement has helped to clarify the situation and we are happy to answer any questions (contact@rism.info).
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Klaus Pietschmann, President, RISM Board of Directors
Dr. Balázs Mikusi, Executive Director, RISM Editorial Center
Category: New at RISM
