The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts

university PoLiti Cs and Pra Cti Ce-based researCh

has problems securing funding for projects that cross established boundaries between
the research and arts communities.
Coming back to europe, the general situation with regard to these problems was
summed up in elia’s strategy paper, published in may 2008:

in common with all higher education in europe, arts education is subject

to increasingly complex internal and external assessment and has to meet

stringent requirements. national and european funding councils use standards

for quality and for transparency of artistic research that are not necessarily

different from the sciences. in order to be successful, the level of credibility of

artistic research is often required to be of similar significance as the sciences.

The increasing importance of artistic research and development should also

open possibilities for european funding of artistic research in a cross- national

context. The european Research area, which aims to create free circulation

of researchers in europe in all scientific fields, also has great relevance for

artistic research.

(elia 2008b: 1)

The last sentence may be more of a pious dream than reality. so far research policy
makers on the european scene have shown very little interest in including the creative
and performing arts in the concept of the european Research area. The report from
the european Commission on the creative industries only underlines this attitude
when it totally neglects the research side. in a situation of recession where politicians
eagerly grasp for solutions and funds for industrial and economic revival there is little
hope for additional funding for any type of research that cannot be defined as ‘useful’
in a more narrow sense.

Degree- awarding powers

The problem of degree- awarding powers in relation to artistic research has two aspects.
one is the actual right to award research degrees, the other is the question of what
degree to award.
The elia 2004–2005 survey ‘Research in and through the arts’ (elia 2006b)
showed that artistic research and third cycle degrees are defined differently within the
higher arts education and professional arts sectors across europe. in a subsequent
strategy paper from elia published in 2008, it was noted that the inclusion of the third
cycle in the Bologna process has had a significant impact on higher arts education
and the conditions for developing research:

in most countries – with some exceptions – higher arts education institutes

are authorised to award third cycle degrees or develop third cycle programmes

in collaboration with universities.

(elia 2008b: 1)

in countries where art institutions do not have the right to award third cycle degrees
the quest for such a right seem to have prompted a number of schemes for mergers