On the 2nd of May at Lucerne University, Switzerland at the School of Music, I’ll be giving a keynote on practice research as part of an excellent program that explores artistic and art education research. Details of the symposium, which is free to attend, can be found here.
Photograph of toaster as part of The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites. © Daniel Alexander 2009.
I’ll be a panellist at the following discussion surrounding the sharing and preservation of practice research, hosted by the UK Reproducibility Network on Monday 15 November 2021. Link here: https://www.ukrn.org/event/enhancing-searchability/
Here is an outline of what the workshop will be about:
This workshop will deal with some of the challenges and issues involved with documenting and archiving practice research. Some of the questions this panel will aim to address include:
- How can we ensure that practice research is fully searchable and visible in the public domain?
- Are university repositories able to host the research findings of practice research projects run within, or in collaboration with, universities in the UK?
- What kinds of practices can we design and share that allow for the most effective and efficient means of sharing the research findings of work in this area?
- How do we consider the ways in which disciplinary differences warrant different considerations in devising systems (technological or otherwise) for archiving and disseminating practice research?
PanellistsChair: Professor Mark d’Inverno, Goldsmiths, University of London
Professor Oriana Baddeley, Former Dead of Research, University of the Arts London
Dr Lauren Redhead, Senion Lecturer in Music, Goldsmiths, University of London
Professor Bambo Syinka, Professor of Story, Bath Spa University
Dr Scott McLaughlin, Lecturer in Composition and Music Technology, Leeds University
Dr James Bulley, artist and composer, co-author of Bulley-Şahin reports on practice research for Research England (2021)
Today marks the publication date, after nearly three years of work, of two reports, written as part of a collaborative post-doctorate with Dr Özden Şahin, on the subject of practice research in England, commissioned by the Practice Research Advisory Group UK (PRAG-UK) and funded by Research England. Published by PRAG-UK and the British Library.
The two Bulley-Şahin reports are published by the Practice Research Advisory Group UK (PRAG-UK) and are available Open Access here.
Writing in the foreword to What is practice research?, Steven Hill, Director of Research at Research England says: “Practice research is a new way of thinking about and engaging in research and so needs new structures and systems to maximise its impact within and outside the academy.”
He adds: “These reports are a seminal contribution that draws together current thinking relating to practice research in all its diversity. They provide consistent language to talk about practice research across multiple disciplinary contexts and clarify the challenges that need to be addressed to ensure the full potential of practice research. Notably, the reports span and provide linkages between the theoretical and practical.”
“This range is essential. If there are to be better tools for hosting and communicating practice research, they need to align with the ways practice researchers conceptualise their work.”
Practice research has a history stretching as far back as the earliest human experiments: practice is a method of discovering and sharing new findings about the world that surrounds us. In recent years, scholarly communication has undergone a series of changes that have led to a broadening of the landscape of academic research, due in part to the emergence of practice research in the academy. The formulation and dissemination of practice research affords an important opportunity for researchers in England across all research disciplines, offering a research field that conveys ways of knowing from practice, operating within, across and beyond disciplines in manners that go far beyond traditional research types. In practice research, forms of sensory, tacit and embodied knowledge can be conveyed, and its sharing presents an opportunity for the modernising and revitalising of research communication, uncovering novel dissemination routes in the digital era.
(from an article about the reports found here)
Bulley, James and Şahin, Özden. 2021. Practice Research - Report 1: What is practice research? and Report 2: How can practice research be shared?. Practice Research Advisory Group UK (PRAG-UK), London. https://doi.org/10.23636/1347
