Research and innovation

Our research

With over 100 years of research activity, we bring together scholars, performers, and composers.

The quality of our research (REF 2014), and the funding it attracts, means we’re able to invest in excellent facilities and academic staff who are actively engaged in research.

Our three research clusters provide a creative academic context for PhD student supervision, collaborative research and impact building, and they also identify key themes within our research: Music as Culture; Music, Science and Technology and Making Music.

Research themes

Research in the School of Music is clustered around three research themes, each of which is represented by a research group.

Music as Culture

Our research explores a rich variety of musicology from the seventeenth century to the present day.

Impact and Engagement

We produce individual, interdisciplinary and collaborative research that generates impact in a broad range of real-world, academic and non-academic contexts. Our research explores the interaction of music with people, cultures and technologies and seeks to advocate for the historic and continued significance of music in society. Our work, at local, national and global scale, supports a variety of cultural, social, educational and charitable organisations and we are committed to bringing benefit to those with whom we collaborate. In addition to opportunities for engagement presented by our ongoing research projects, we offer extensive public engagement opportunities through our Music Research Colloquia and International Concert Series programmes.

Speakers and computer with music software on screen.

Music Research Colloquia

A wide-ranging programme of Research Colloquia, featuring invited guest speakers and staff, covering a broad view of current musicology and interdisciplinary research, including composition and technology; music and social sciences; music management; new approaches to music history; music psychology; and performance (analysis, history, pedagogy, practice).

Centre for Practice-led Research in the Arts

The Centre for Practice Research in the Arts (CePRA) brings together scholars from across the arts disciplines whose research employs practice research methodologies.

More on Centre for Practice-led Research in the Arts

Research projects

Our research projects explore a wide range of contemporary issues within the music industry, working with partners on a global scale.