Contextsthe extent that it demonstrates the candidates continuing performance as a professional
artist. But if the doctorate is regarded as a training in research, then the relevance of
performing as an art professional needs to be demonstrated. if one’s research model is
the hybrid of all the criteria of a traditional phd plus all the criteria for professional
performance, then having exhibitions would be relevant as part of a phd programme. in
practice, however, what we often hear from Finnish candidates is that they are required to
undertake a ‘double- doctorate’, doing twice as much work as candidates in other subjects
owing to a lack of specificity on the part of supervisors to what should be included and
what should be excluded from the artistic doctorate.
professional doctorates could be a solution for which award to give for work
under this hybrid model. such doctorates are awarded for ‘an original contribution
to professional practice’ rather than ‘to knowledge’. This would seem fitting in cases
where the aim is to contribute to an ongoing professional activity. But even so, a review
might be necessary so that the academically- led phd component had a clear role.
in the ‘new paradigm’ approach, the communities of professional practice and of
academic research have the obligation to define the aims and objectives of research and
phd training. This needs to be considered in the light of what activity the candidate is
being trained for. What is the profession of an artistic researcher, what do they do, what
makes them and their training particular? We believe it is inappropriate to respond that
the candidate must achieve both requirements: for a traditional phd in, for example,
the sociology of art; and also the advancement of professional practice in the current
arts circuit. Thus it is likely that in addition to a refinement of the curriculum for an
artistic phd in the new paradigm, clarification will also be needed of the postdoctoral
employment context, their skills and activities, and their relationship to the existing
worlds of traditional academia and of established professional arts practice.
The problem of describing qualityVarious agencies involved with education, both in terms of delivery, e.g. Qaa, and
in terms of assessment, e.g. Rae, have attempted to establish absolute standards of
quality. The Qaa uses a system of benchmarking, which sets out key indicators of
achievement. as an attempt at establishing minimum skill- sets for students at various
levels this approach is quite successful. however, such benchmarks are essentially
quantitative rather than qualitative owing to the difficulty of describing the relative
quality of the attribute. The uK Rae attempts to overcome this difficulty by setting
qualitative impact targets, for example that research should have ‘international impact’,
‘national impact’, etc. (Rae 2006). however, when we surveyed the 2008 submission
in art and design we found that many items were submitted in the hope of representing
internationally significant outcomes merely because they were exhibited or distributed
internationally, rather than because they had international impact.^6 although the
additional requirement of a 300-word statement arguing for the significance and impact
of each submission was required, it will have fallen on the Rae panel to discriminate
between international as in to be found geographically outside the uK, i.e. overseas,
and international as in significant outside the uK, i.e. impactful.
The description of the work being overseas says nothing about quality whereas the
description of the work having impact does suggest quality. The concept of quality is