Research and innovation
Impact and Engagement Report
Read our report to find out about some of our current and recent research projects, student engagement and community activities.
Discover our impact
Our research
As a School we place impactful research at the heart of everything we do and provide innovative leadership in the field of performance and across the arts and cultural industries. Our research is characterised by being socially engaged – deeply rooted in and connected to the arts and culture, and the roles that these play in society.
We are acknowledged as world-leading in key areas of our research and impact activity and over the next ten years we will build on this strong base to develop a more regenerative culture that embraces the vast potential offered by digital transformation.
Our research represents an arc that ranges from the individual artist to the general public via creative practitioners, producers, managers, leaders, audiences, markets and policymakers. It offers a strategic response to the global challenges facing our planet and its people – complex and urgent issues that demand creative, pioneering, interdisciplinary and imaginative approaches. Our Impact and Engagement Report provides rich insights into some of the research projects and engagement activities undertaken in the school over the last six years.
We have a strong interdisciplinary ethos which leads us to collaborate with colleagues from across the University, as well as with universities and cultural sector partners around the world. Our vibrant and growing community of PhD researchers is an integral part of our research culture and reflects the rich diversity of our School’s research interests.
Research activity in the School is conducted under three interlocking themes which define our unique research identity: Cultural value, engagement and policy; Cultural places, spaces and environments; and Performance pedagogies, processes and practices.
Research groups
Research in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries is represented by six research groups.
Audience, Experience and Engagement
The Audience, Experience and Engagement research group investigates how audiences engage with and are engaged by a range of theatre forms, performance and the arts.
More on Audience, Experience and EngagementBodies and Performance
The Bodies and Performance research group explores the way bodies are performed in their cultural, biological, philosophical, aesthetic and mediated contexts and manifestations.
More on Bodies and PerformanceParticipation
The Participation research group examines the nature of participation as both a process and a goal, in all its forms, from participatory practice, research and governance.
More on ParticipationPlace and Performance
This research group examines how place functions beyond the theatre building, focusing on the reciprocal relationship between people and place in both built and natural environments.
More on Place and PerformancePerformance Training, Preparation and Pedagogy
Positioning training within a larger context of performance practice this research group explores the processes of preparation in dramaturgy, composition, theatre directing and devising.
More on Performance Training, Preparation and PedagogyCentre for Cultural Policy
The Centre for Cultural Policy is dedicated to exploring and expanding the breadth of research in the field of cultural policy, regionally, nationally and internationally.
More on Centre for Cultural PolicyCentre for Cultural Value
The Centre for Cultural Value is building a shared understanding of the differences that arts, culture, heritage and screen make to people’s lives and to society. It wants cultural policy and practice to be based on rigorous research and evaluation of what works and what needs to change.
Stanislavsky Research Centre
The Stanislavsky Research Centre is a unique international initiative created to provide a home for both academic and practice/performance-based research based upon the work and legacy of Konstantin Stanislavsky.
Impact and engagement
With industry in its name, the School’s research is rooted in strong local, regional, national and international collaborations with external partners ensuring that the impact of our work is felt on society locally and globally. We are proud of the deep relationships our researchers have forged with a broad range of industry partners in culture, environment, health, policymaking, economics and business and we are committed to engaging with the challenging opportunities for real-world change and transformation that these partners demand.
Research Seminar Series
Our regular seminars are an opportunity to hear about and discuss new research in performance and the cultural industries from invited guest speakers, academic researchers and postgraduate research students.
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.

Research projects
Our research projects explore a wide range of contemporary issues within the performance and cultural industries, working with partners on a global scale.
Visiting scholars
If you are a professional or an academic, and you have a scheme of academic research that you can appropriately conduct at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries, then our visiting scholar programme may be a perfect opportunity for you.