In 2025 we started the first phase of an ambitious 5 year action research project, mapping existing resources and gaps in provision for the Scottish literature sector. This research helps us establish some baselines that allow us to help make things better. It also helps us begin to measure where change is (and isn’t) happening.
We began with an online survey with our existing Member organisations, with a focus on economic data and big picture sector challenges. We have also begun documenting a History of LAS and its relationship with cultural policy and the organic growth of the literature sector in Scotland since the end of the twentieth century.
Writers – in all genres and forms, on and off the page — are the foundation stone of our sector. We ran the first round of our Writer Bursaries action research pilot into perceptions of gatekeeping in the literature sector in 2025, and are running a second round in 2026 to confirm our initial findings. We ran an online survey with writers based in Scotland in 2025/26, asking them to share their experience of making a living (or not) as a writer, with a focus on income, rights and other professional conditions.
With the support of a research internship funded by the Scottish graduate School of Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) we are now conducting an initial round of 1-2-1 interviews with individuals within our Membership and the broader sector, to build a more detailed picture of challenges and opportunities in career progression, governance and advocacy. We hope to build on this archive of insight with a follow-on round in 2027.
Thanks to funding from the National Lottery through Creative Scotland we launched our new website in Summer 2026 as our first step in exploring ways of making this ongoing research visible.