Southern Methodist University announced plans Tuesday to assemble the world’s largest database of arts research, with an aim of helping culture groups nationwide manage their budgets, improve operations, and build audiences, says the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The National Center for Arts Research, to be run jointly by the university’s Meadows School of the Arts and Cox School of Business, will gather financial, market, and other information from a variety of statistical sources, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Census Bureau, and the Cultural Data Project.

The center will make its data freely available to culture entities, release an annual “State of the Arts” report, and build an interactive tool for arts groups to compare their performance and business model with those of similar organizations.