The Times of London’s Higher Ed Supplement Discusses Arts Practice as Research

The Times of London’s Higher Ed Supplement Discusses Arts Practice as Research

One of the major findings from a2ru’s March 2013 Research Symposium at Penn State was that we need to clarify the case for arts practice in research universities when it is neither “research” nor in service to other disciplines.  The U.K. has a good decade’s head start on this conversation, due to shifting governmental funding priorities for higher ed.  This cover article, titled “Creative Accountability,” published in the Times Literary Supplement on Sunday, March 7, is directly pertinent to our discussion.  Nicholas Till, Professor of Opera and Music Theater at the University of Sussex, argues that “the intellectual rationale for practice as research in UK universities as [never] thought through systematically,” and maintains that the widespread acceptance of the case “with little real examination” has been a “fatal error.”  Till’s argument about when arts practice can be considered research, and why arts practice that isn’t properly considered research still has a place in the research university, provides an excellent basis for our further discussion.