university PoLiti Cs and Pra Cti Ce-based researChThe ‘utilitarian approach’ towards education in the arts is very obvious in a recent
report published by the european Commission (directorate- general for education
and Culture) with the title ‘The impact of Culture on Creativity’. The report has this
to say about art schools in the european union and their contribution to the goals of
a culture of creativity:
art schools exist in all eu member states and provide programmes including
music, dance, fine arts, design, theatre, film, crafts, new media, fashion and
architecture. The key common point of all those disciplines is that they enable
students to develop their creative potential by teaching them a wide range of
artistic, technical, professional and personal skills ... Creativity is a skill that
features in all learning of arts disciplines provided by art schools. The reason
why art schools particularly nurture creativity lies in the way art is learned
and taught. The modes of teaching consist of promoting critical reflection,
innovation, and the ability to question orthodoxies.
(Kea 2009)an important characteristic of arts education is that students are best able to connect
with their education through practice- based learning and experimentation. divergent
thinking, improvisation and experiential learning are mainstays of all education that
takes place in art schools. Fine arts graduates’ work processes are akin to the notion of
interpretive innovation, involving collaborators across sectors, industries and disciplines.
dance and theatre, for example, are usually taught as part of a multi- disciplinary
environment (such as the ability to perform in public and present and control the body)
that can become transferable skills (e.g. communication, the ability to work effectively as
a member of a team, risk- taking). The study shows that such skill sets are valued in other
working contexts such as the creative, managerial and entrepreneurial ones.
oddly enough, the report has very little to say about the role of research if art schools
are supposed to deliver these types of skills to society. This may be due to the peculiar
fact that higher education and research are separated phenomena in the context of the
european Commission. The eu research policy has after all historically been focussed
on ‘hard’ scientific research related to technological development and industrial output.
it would, however, not be surprising if art schools throughout europe were to take
the main conclusions of this report as an argument for better funding of arts- based
research in the future.
Quality assurance and research fundingpractice- based research in and through the arts may sometimes be easy to accept
in theory by the wider academic community. more problems arise when it comes to
quality assurance, peer- review procedures and research funding. These problems can
be encountered on both the national and the institutional level.
a pioneering role with regard to quality assurance and the subsequent research
funding has been played by the united Kingdom and the Research assessment exercises
(Rae) instituted by the funding agencies. The Rae has had an enormous impact
on the entire system of higher education in Britain. This comprehensive evaluation