The “Museu Coleção Berardo” emerged in June 2007 with great pomp and circumstance. In one sitting this new museum surpassed a series of blockages that afflicted the Portuguese cultural sector for several decades. First, it provided free access to a very relevant and comprehensive collection of modern and contemporary art, representing the most relevant Western artists of the 20th century, from Picasso to Warhol - a collection unparalleled in Portugal, country that during the dictatorial regime (1928-1974) followed a nationalist and isolationist policy very unfavorable to this type of art. Secondly, the new museum escaped the strong limitations related to the management of public museums, being managed by a private foundation of public interest specifically created for this purpose within a public-private partnership. Finally, this museum was housed in a modern building created from scratch to present art exhibitions, but without a collection of its own and with an exhibition program subject to budgetary and political fluctuations supported with resources close to those that the new museum began to consume.
However, the design of this public-private partnership proved to be particularly asymmetrical and from an early period many problems arose related to the financing and governance of the foundation created for this purpose. In fact, the public trustor was responsible for sustaining all the costs of running and installing the museum, while the private trustor was only obliged to lend his vast collection of modern and contemporary art composed of 862 works on a lending agreement (“comodato”). Similarly, against the general law on Portuguese cultural heritage, the State renounced the power to classify this collection, and each of the works that constituted it, which would prevent its export or shipment outside the national territory. Over time it became clear that the private settlor took over the museum as its own, even though it was fully paid by the state. From the name of the museum (Museu Coleção Berardo) to the constitution of the foundation’s board of directors (presided for life by the private trustor), until the faculty chose the artistic director and the possibility to use the museum’s deposits to place other works of art associated with him or his family and trusts, soon the indistinction between the trustor and the institution deepened. In the year following the opening of the museum the private trustor also failed to comply with the rule governing the operation of the acquisitions fund of new works of art of the museum, for which each of the two partners, public and private, were obliged to contribute half a million euros per year. Making use of a very questionable legal expedient, in moral and legal terms, the private settlor appealed to the legal figure of the "pledge in fulfillment" to satisfy the obligation provided, proceeding to the delivery of works of art of equivalent value, from his private collection, which were evaluated by gallerists with whom he did frequent business.
The pride of the private trustor and the accumulation of situations of tension with the ministry of culture were transversal to several governments, regardless of their political composition, affecting both left-wing and right-wing governments. In addition to all this a series of exogenous events related to the business life of the private settlor negatively affected the public image of the museum. Among these events stands out, above all, the collector’s debt to three Portuguese banking institutions, in the amount of one billion euros, whose charge is still in dispute in the courts. This situation seriously affected the public perception of the museum, not only by the indistinction between the private trustor and the museum, but also because the works of art of the lending agreement were given as a guarantee of this millionaire loan. The collection is now preventively under seizure, until the courts decide to whom it belong to.
The accumulation of tensions, the uncertainty as to the ownership of the works of the lending agreement and the perception that the private settlor benefited from a privileged situation led the State to denounce the lending agreement established between them in May 2022, a decision that dictated the extinction of the Museu Coleção Berardo, in December 2022, and its complete liquidation, in December 2023. From its ashes was born a new museum, called MAC/ CCB, curiously keeping all the works of the lending agreement, since the courts, invoking the public interest, ordered that its usufruct remained open to the population, along with other collections recently acquired by the State or deposited there by other private collectors.
The objective of this study is to analyze the benefits and drawbacks of the public-private partnership that gave life to the “Museu Coleção Berardo” during its fifteen and a half years of life. During this period the museum received more than 4.5 million unique visitors, organized 124 exhibitions, edited 76 books and catalogs, acquired 219 works of art through the Acquisitions Fund and received 29 works of art in donation, being important to notice that during the first 10 years the entries were completely free. Also important to take into account, although very difficult to quantify, was the ability given to Portuguese citizens, and foreign visitors, to access a collection of great quality, unique in the Portuguese context, providing the city of Lisbon with a collection of modern and contemporary art of international level, valued by Christie’s in 2006 at 316 million euros, a value that is now considerably underestimated. In contrast, the public funding of this institution amounted to more than 64 million euros, of which two thirds directly and one third indirectly - corresponding to the use of the building structure, its cleaning, surveillance, maintenance, and repair.
This analysis is intended to draw conclusions about what was positive and what was negative in this PPP. Although there are always imponderable and conjunctural situations that cannot be controlled or foreseen, the objective of this study is to define a set of rules that help policy-makers to establish this type of partnerships in a much more balanced and durable way, involving a fair division of responsibilities and rights that is much more adequate to the public interest.
The bibliography for this research is divided into two types: contextualization studies (A) and documentary sources (B). In relation to contextualization studies the most relevant works are those that directly address the Berardo Collection and the Berardo Collection Museum (A1) and the works that discuss management models of international museums of contemporary art (A2). As for documentary sources, they consist, above all, in the analysis of the legal documents that directly regulated the activity of the public-private foundation that managed the Berardo Collection Museum (B1) and the annual accountability documents of this entity (B2).
Since this author was one of the members of the Winding-up Committee of that foundation, whose final report was delivered to the Portuguese government at the end of 2023, the investigation is practically completed, now lacking to consolidate the analysis on the merits and demerits of this public-private partnership and contextualize it through secondary literature referring to other museums of modern and contemporary art also established as public-private partnerships.

Bibliography:
A1
L. Afonso, A. Fernandes, 2019. Mercados da Arte. Lisboa, Sílabo.
A. Duarte, 2016. Da Coleção ao Museu. O colecionismo privado de arte moderna e contemporânea em Portugal. Casal de Cambra, Caleidoscópio.
P. Lapa (ed.), 2022. Coleção Berardo. 1909-2019. Lisboa, FAMC-CB.

A2
G. Adam, 2021. The rise and rise of the private art museum. London, Lund Humphries.
G. Alcalde, J. Burc, 2016. "El proceso de implantación del derecho privado en la gestión de los museos públicos en Cataluña". Gestión y Política Pública XXV(2):591-625.
D. Jelincic et al. 2017. "Public-private partnership in cultural heritage sector". Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences SI2017:74-89.
B. Frey, 2003. Arts & Economics. Analysis & cultural policy. Berlin, Springer.
D. Greiling, A. Halachmi, 2012. "Public private partnerships: accountability and governance". Public Administration Quarterly 36(2):133-139.
K. Kolbe, O. Veltuis, J. Aengenheyster, A. Rozenbaum, 2022. “The global rise of private art museums a literature review”. Poetics 95(1): 101712.
P. McIsaac, 2007. "Public-private support of the arts and German cultural policy". International Journal of Cultural Policy 13(4):371-391.
E. Moustaira, 2015. Art collections, private and public. A comparative legal study. Cham, Springer.
J. Rius-Ulldemolins, 2015. “The rise of the hybrid model of art museums and cultural institutions. The case of Barcelona”. Museum Management and Curatorship 31(2): 1-15.
G. Walker, 2019. The Private Collector's Museum: Public good versus private gain. London, Routledge.
S. Wang, L. Yu, R. Qiu, 2023. "Evolutionary Game Analysis of Participations in Museum Public–Private Partnership Projects Based on System Dynamics". Systems 2023(11), 7.
F. Zólyom, 2023. "Role models versus modes of rule: the foundation of GfZK, a public-private museum in Leipzig". Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 31(1): 83-94.


B1
Decreto-Lei n.º 164/2006, 9 de agosto 2006. Diário da República.
Decreto-Lei n.º 90-D/2022, 30 de dezembro 2022. Diário da República.
Despacho n.º 4291-A/2023, 6 de abril 2023. Diário da República.

B2
Relatório e contas da Fundação de Arte Moderna e Contemporânea – Coleção Berardo (Annual reports 2006-2023).

Labor costs, productivity lag (Borwick, 2012; Ellis, 2018), and the rising costs of performance and presentation space (Segers et al., 2010) threatens the ability of United States nonprofit arts organizations to survive. The Theatre Communications Group’s annual publication indicated that the nonprofit theater industry in the United States was in grave trouble (Fonner et al., 2020), even before the impacts of the COVID19. As nonprofit arts organizations continue to strive for sustainability, academic partnerships may be one path (Hauge et al., 2018; Moreton, 2016). The purpose of this qualitative case study conducted in 2023 is to describe how American Repertory Theater (ART) and Harvard University (Harvard) decision-makers perceive the exchange that occurs through their partnership. The relevant research questions that inspired the study were (1) What do Harvard and ART decision-makers perceive that each entity gives through the partnership? (2) What do Harvard and ART decision-makers perceive each entity gets through the partnership? Although Harvard provides operational and financial support for the theater as part of the partnership, participants from each entity highlighted a value that they see as equally essential to the theater’s sustainable practice and partnership: artistic exchange between the theater and university. This paper and presentation specifically focus on this one feature from the findings.

Case study as described by Patton (2015) served as the methodological underpinnings for the study. The study is categorized as a single significant case which provides an empirically rich and context specific account of decision-maker perspectives of this partnership. Although case studies have a low degree of generalizability, Dada et al. (2016) suggested that case studies related to partnerships between universities and businesses have a high likelihood of application beyond the case itself.

The methods for data collection in this case study included participant provided and publicly available documents, and interviews with ART and Harvard decision-makers. The researcher developed the same initially through purposive sampling based on research about the Harvard and ART partnership and then through a network-sampling technique. Participants included senior members from Harvard’s Office of the President, Office of Financial Strategy and Planning, faculty, and an associate provost. It also included a member of ART’s executive staff, and department heads from the artistic, management, producing, and venue management departments. All participants were closely involved in the partnership.

The study employed social exchange theory (Burgess et al., 1979; Homans, 1958) as a philosophical framework to analyze data. Social exchange theory uses an economic lens to suggest that in any relationship, each party conducts an internal cost-benefit analysis to determine how much they are willing to give to a relationship based on the perceived benefit, and if they should dissolve the relationship. In addition to individual human interactions, scholars have applied social exchange theory to business-to-business partnerships (Ford, 1990; Jeong & Oh, 2017). This study specifically employed Jeong and Oh’s (2017) Business to Business Exchange Model as a theoretical framework.

Data analysis occurred over several months through an iterative coding process using thematic and content analysis. The researcher applied open, axial, and selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) methods to analyze the interview transcripts. To enhance trustworthiness, the researcher applied member checking (Birt et al., 2016) so that participants could review and clarify that their intended meaning matched the transcript.

The results of the study indicated that decision-makers from both ART and Harvard perceive that ART benefits significantly from both operational and financial support through the partnership, but that both partners benefit through the artistic exhcnage that occurs. The coding process revealed that Harvard and ART decision-makers perceive the artistic engagement occurring in three broad ways. The creative collaborations: (1) enhance the development of new plays and musicals, especially those focused on social issues and justice, (2) support Harvard’s efforts in infusing the arts into the cognitive life of the university and (3) enhance educational initiatives in Harvard’s new Theater, Dance & Media concentration. The following three paragraphs describe specific findings relative to each of these components.

Participants from both ART and Harvard noted that artistic exchange related to university research as central to the partnership. This form of creative engagement informs and enhances the work that happens on stage. ART works to develop new productions and reimagines theatrical work for revivals. Over the last four decades ART has earned many awards for this work including a Pulitzer Prize and four Tony Awards. Many productions from ART go on to a commercial life on Broadway. Notable productions in the last 10 years that have gone on to Broadway include: 1776, All the Way, Finding Neverland, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Jagged Little Pill, Natasha Pierre & The Great Comment of 1812, Pippin, SIX, and Waitress. The decision-makers shared that Harvard faculty from non-performing arts disciplines lend their expertise and connect with artists who are developing their work. In one case, this type of collaboration inspired the creation of a second act to a new musical called We Live in Cairo about the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The partnership provides theater artists with access to leading scholars who lend their support not only to interpretation, but to creation as well.

In 2015, Harvard’s president committed to making the arts integral to life at the university. Through the creation of art, the partnership provides Harvard professors the opportunity to see their work come to life onstage, and a theatrical platform to present aspects of their research. As an example, participants from both ART and Harvard shared about a recent production called Ocean Filibuster, a theatrical work developed at ART to address the climate catastrophe. They shared that one professor from The Harvard University Center for the Environment was thrilled to see his research come to life through live performance, because it can reach an audience in a much more human way that facts and figures may not. Beyond the work that influences what happens on stage, participants also shared that ART’s work enhances interdepartmental collaboration at Harvard, which is largely a decentralized institution. Additionally, because ART’s performances occur in performance spaces at Harvard, the ART provides a pathway for the Greater Boston community to connect with Harvard through the arts. Participants noted that ART’s performances are one of few ways that community members can specifically engage at Harvard without an explicit university affiliation.

The creative engagement extends to Harvard’s new Theater, Dance & Media concentration which connects directly with ART. Staff members from ART offer 12 courses each year in the program as part of the partnership. The decision-makers shared that this intellectual collaboration allowed the concentration to launch and grow quickly with ART collaborating to offer the majority of courses as the program began serving students.

Although financial and operational resources are essential components of the partnership, participants promoted the idea that the intellectual connections through artistic engagement are at the center of what each entity gives and gets through the exchange. This case study is context specific, however it may provide useful ways of thinking, and inspire new questions relative to HEI and theater artistic engagement more generally. The partnership between American Repertory Theater and Harvard University may serve also as a model for understanding HEI and theater partnerships and for other arts organizations and higher education institutions interested in forming partnerships.