The project, Artistic Doctorates in Europe: Third cycle provision in Dance and Performance (ADiE), will investigate and create a step change in Practice as Research (PaR) inquiries within postgraduate research level in Dance and Performance. It will also substantiate the value and enhance their impact on the creative industries and even beyond. In recent years there has been a rich reconsideration of the place of creative arts practice in research, addressing how practice can be understood as a method of research and how embodied arts and material thinking produces knowledge. There has also been a growing number of doctorates completed through creative practice (which is variously called 'Artistic Research', 'Arts-based Research', 'Practice led Research'). However, dance and somatically informed performance, as a minority subject in many Universities, has received little direct attention in these discourses and frameworks and researchers in this field often work in isolating contexts with somewhat meagre infrastructure, networks, resources and channels to disseminate and support the work done. ADiE seeks to address this gap by investigating practices and developing resources to support the significant developments in dance research that have the potential to reach beyond university frameworks to impact artistic innovation and the creative economy.The principal aim is to develop productive and meaningful provisions for PaR Doctorates that are suitable to the fluid, increasingly interdisciplinary and global, creative/research environments with which they intersect. Addressing the needs of research candidates, supervisors, universities and the creative industry the aim is to develop resources and guidelines that are directly relevant to the mobile nature of the creative industry and recognise the changing needs of the professional dance and performing arts sector. ADiE will therefore ensure that the rising number of artists entering into, and being nurtured by, university environments receive the best possible support for their artistic/scholarly endeavors and are also well prepared to become our future leaders in the arts. ADiE asks: What are the expectations, perceptions and experiences of the Artistic Doctorate?What are the methodological tools and other training needs of artistic researchers in Dance and Performance?How are doctoral dissertations in artistic research best supervised and supported?How do doctoral studies through artistic research respond to, and prepare candidates for, the future?How might universities and creative partners better support artistic research doctorates and reflect the future needs of the creative industry and higher education environments? To address these questions ADiE will undertake four strands of work:1. Review the experiences/expectations of artistic doctoral candidates in different national contexts to identify best practices and gaps/ issues.2. Devise open educational resources / research training materials focusing in depth upon methodologies for artistic research in the public realm. 3. Develop guidelines that enable university & collaborative partners to better supervise and support the life cycle of Artistic Doctorates4. Dissemination & advocacy, including; conferences and a 'virtual network' for doctoral candidates and supervisors.This is a collaboration across four high-ranking research/teaching institutions - Middlesex and Chichester Universities (UK), Stockholm University of the Arts (Sweden) and University of the Arts, Helsinki (Finland), in partnership with four leading professional arts organisations - Dance4 (UK), Kiasma Theatre - Museum of Contemporary Arts and Zodiak Centre for New Dance (Finland) and WELD (Sweden). This partnership will collaborate to undertake this comprehensive and in depth project that will bring wide ranging benefits. The partnership will in its first year investigate current provision and industry needs for creative practice doctorates in dance and performance in, and beyond, the partner countries. This assessment will enable the identification of common issues in provision and the relevance to creative industry. In the second year we will develop much needed and innovative training materials, offer guidelines on effective support and supervision practices for PaR Doctorates and establish a rigorous shared support mechanism which will enable the dissemination of this good practice. Through the third year the transnational partnership will ensure that the latest developments and the best practices will be inculcated in common, across Europe and world-wide impacting upon regulations, policy and intersections with professional practice. This will significantly improve the quality of doctoral work and the experience of research candidates; ensuring that universities are able to offer robust and relevant programmes that meet the needs of industry and aspirations of candidates.
The ADiE project has investigated Artistic Research Doctorates in Dance and Performance and contributed to the development of doctoral education via publications, workshops, training intensives, conferences, and advocacy. Our particular aim was to create a step-change, enhancing understanding of these qualifications, increasing quality and to evidence the significance. In order to do this we have in summary produced the following; 1. A review of the experiences/expectations of artistic doctoral candidates in different national contexts to identify best practices and gaps/ issues. 2. Devised open educational resources/research training materials focusing in-depth upon methodologies for artistic research. 3. Developed guidelines that enable university & collaborative partners to better supervise and support the life cycle of Artistic Doctorates 4. Documented case studies that reveal the experiences, significances and impact of these degrees. ADiE is a collaboration across four high-ranking research/teaching institutions - Middlesex and Chichester Universities (UK), Stockholm University of the Arts (Sweden) and University of the Arts, Helsinki (Finland), in partnership with four leading professional arts organisations - Dance4 (UK), Kiasma Theatre - Museum of Contemporary Arts and Zodiak Centre for New Dance (Finland) and WELD (Sweden). Reflecting this membership and the nature of artistic research, we have emphasised connectivity across arts and University sectors. Responding to the needs of the sector ADiE produced a series of open access publications targeting the stakeholder group to enhance the delivery, quality, and impact of artistic doctorates. These publications make a significant contribution to understanding how the sector perceives and values the artistic doctorate (Survey report 2017), understandings of and support for research methods (Research (in/as) Motion: A resource collection, 2019), developing new approaches to research and its supervision (Reconsidering Research and Supervision as Creative Embodied Practice, 2019) and asserting best practices and the required conditions to effectively support and enhance doctoral provisions into the future (Recommendations for Action, 2019). These publications bring an international group of over 50 authors together to provide insights and guidance. Importantly they are written such that throughout there are clear indications as to how the materials can be activated by readers, whether they are candidates, supervisors or policymakers. These publications have been enhanced by the gathering of case studies and interviews which document examples of current doctoral practice and take the form of video recordings/ online documents that incorporate the voices of 16 artist-researchers, alongside keynote lectures and artist-researcher responses to re-envision the future of doctoral education (9 in total). We have curated six multiplier events and two teaching intensives, with approx 310 attendees across these events. The teaching intensives were attended by research candidates from across the partnership, alongside additional events for candidates from across the world. The participants were able to develop their skills and knowledge of artistic research, reflect on their own practices, and also build international networks in support of their research and future careers. The multiplier events were held in Nottingham, Stockholm, Chichester, London (x 2) and Helsinki and each had a different focus whilst at the same time acting to bring together a community of interest. From the first event exploring the current state of the field to the final event which looked to the future, these have been richly informative, enabling the partnership to widely disseminate its findings, resource materials, and guidance documents. We also extended the reach of the project via panel presentations and curating arts events beyond the multipliers, including staging round tables at eight major international research events, including the Venice Biennale (see www.artisticdoctorates.com for details). These events have all be well attended enabling a wide network of dance and performance researchers to hear about our project, reaching approx. 200 further attendees in total. Further, they were an opportunity to encourage users to download and access the online resources ADiE has produced, with some 1013 visitors just to output 3 which can be accessed at https://nivel.teak.fi/adie/. The impacts include enhanced connectivity and opportunities for mobility by participants (candidates and staff), increased confidence in research methods and supervisory practices and improved programme design and support. These impacts will continue to be enhanced beyond the project via the ongoing invitations to curate/participate in follow-on events and as the ADiE resources are taken-up and applied by users.