Common ground discussions

A series of five discussion sessions around practice research in the arts at Leeds.

As part of the Research Culture Crucible programme, Dr Scott McLaughlin (School of Music/Centre for Practice-Led Research in the Arts) and Peter Petkovsek (School of Performance and Cultural Industries) are running a series of five discussion sessions around practice research in the arts at Leeds.

The aim of the discussion series is to find common ground across the disciplines to better support each other in what is still a relatively new (and sometimes confusing) area. Ultimately these discussions will start an ongoing process of building a library of good practice examples here at Leeds that can benefit everyone, from postgraduate researchers and early career researchers new to the area.

The discussion sessions will be hybrid and refreshments provided.

13 June 11am–1pm: Conference room (School of Music)

‘Practice research is for life not for REF’.

Our research is ongoing all the time, whether we’re explicitly presenting it that way or not. What can be done to improve the culture of making our research discoverable and shareable all the time, not just in REF season?

16 June 11am–1pm: School of Performance and Cultural Industries (room TBC)

What does practice research at Leeds look like for you? What is the research culture around practice for you? What can be done to better support you?

Please note that this event is for postgraduate researchers only.

20 June 11am–1pm (venue TBC)

Narratives: Practice research is not alchemy.

How do we make clear the research aspects of our practice? We’re not ‘turning practice into research’, but we can use ‘research narratives’ (not necessarily text-based) to make clear what the research perspective is, and to make it easier for other researchers to find our work.

The Bulley/Şahin report proposes ‘research narratives’ (p. 27) as a useful way to conceptualise the practice/research links, but what could/should that look like?

22 June 11am–1pm (venue TBC)

Navigating the language of research as practitioners.

What do ‘research insights’ mean for you in practice? This is a key term in the REF definition of research, and insights are also the key part of a final PhD submission and viva discussion: i.e. what is your contribution to the research field? What do data and metadata look like in your research?

27 June 11am–1pm (venue TBC)

Sharing: Getting it out there, and making it findable.

What does ‘effective sharing’ mean for you: who are your stakeholders and how do you reach them? Again, a key term in the REF definition, but also relevant for defining the ‘field’ to which a PhD will contribute.

Register for events.