Research Glossary For Creative Practitioners

A Discussion Paper

Professor Erik Knudsen

The following discussion of research glossary as it may relate to the creative practitioner is meant as a point of departure. It is designed to provide the creative practitioner an inroad into how they may conceptualise and articulate their practice as research. In other words, how can we talk about our creative practice as research not only to others from outside our field, but to each other? Some disciplines in the creative arts have advanced ways of articulating such research, while others have not. This is not in any way meant to be a definitive glossary.

I have decided to address it directly to the practitioner, to reflect that the articulation of these thoughts and ideas have crystallised out of discussions in individual mentoring sessions with researchers.

Outputs

Outputs are the product you create in order to make your research findings evident. They can be ephemeral, such as a performance, or tangible, such as a book or a film (see New Knowledge). They can be a whole range of products: for example, a composition, a performance, a painting, a film, a software programme, prototypes or a musical recording. And much more. The critical role of the output is that it embodies the findings of the research questions or enquiries that result from research problems set within an identified context. These findings can be self evident in the output - often requiring no further explanations or elaborations - or they can be evident, but requiring further support to help in identifying the research value in the output (see Documentation). It is usually safest to assume that the research value in the output is not always self evident.

Publications

A key part of any research is that the findings are shared and made available to others. In the traditional sense this means publishing the results in a journal or book, no matter what the field. This is particularly suited to knowledge that is dichotomous and dialectical in nature; what we commonly refer to as intellectual. Publishing is, in essence, the means by which we make our research findings accessible to peers and others. The latter is important, as impact agendas increasingly emphasise making that knowledge accessible to people outside our immediate disciplines. This also helps make the research meaningful and impactful.

Publishing a performance (the output) could involve having a public performance (the publication), live online streaming (publication) or both. Publishing a series of photographs (the output) could involve an exhibition (publication), an online gallery (publication), a book (publication) or all of these. Publishing a film (the output) could involve festival screenings (publication), theatrical screenings (publication), online streaming (publication) or all of these. Publishing a music score (the output) could mean the score being available through a musical publisher (publication) and/or the PRS (publication), performed by a band or orchestra to an audience (publication) or all of these. And so on.

Usually, for example for REF, you will need to demonstrate that access to the outputs is continuous and demonstrate when the first publication took place. In most cases this is not a problem. Where outputs and/or publications are ephemeral by nature, such as a live performance or a gallery installation, documenting and evidencing the ephemeral becomes important (see Documentation).

Impacts

Impact is a complex issue, partly because it depends on which organisation you are trying to demonstrate impact to. The AHRC, for example, have a slightly wider understanding of impact than REF. As a very generalised rule of thumb, the AHRC increasingly have the lay communities in mind when thinking of impact, while REF leans slightly towards how your field may be impacted. The star rating system of REF, for example, is in part also an impact indicator. However, for REF the impact statements are much more institutional in nature and while your projects or outputs will make a contribution to the impact statement (or may indeed be a case study, if selected) and environment of your UoA, these are concerns for research managers in particular. Your priority as a creative practitioner researcher is to create quality outputs and for those outputs to be published.

Other organisations, such as the AHRC, will usually place impact at the heart of their criteria for funding. The AHRC, for example, require impact statements. They have a concept called Pathways to Impact. You can't always know what the impact of your work is going to be, but you can talk about what pathways you are putting in place to have impact.

In short, when thinking of impact think of three things: 1) who are you seeking to impact? 2) how are you going to reach them (engagement, dissemination and so on)? 3) what impact are you hoping to achieve and what is its significance?

Even shorter: how is your work making a contribution to making certain people richer, healthier and happier?

Contexts

All research happens in a context. There tends to be a misunderstanding in relation to the theory/practice debate. Creative practitioners are often put off research because they feel compelled to justify their work within a theoretical context or a cultural studies context by, for example, having to write lengthy literature reviews.

It all depends on where you are aiming to make an original contribution to knowledge. If you are aiming to make an original contribution to the theory of your practice or the cultural debates around your practice, then, of course, a literature review becomes essential in that your work would need to be contextualised in relation to those theories and cultural debates. You will need to be able to point out where the gaps are in those theories and debates that your work is going to address or fill.

If, however, you are aiming to make an original contribution to the practice, then it becomes essential to contextualise your work within the practice context. Likewise, you will illustrate how, within this practice context, there are gaps which you hope your work will address or fill.

You may, of course, have a hybrid, for example where your practice is seeking to challenge or expand on theory, or where you are using a theoretical framework to inform the development of your practice. You will then have to structure your literature/contextual review accordingly. There are, of course, also more non traditional ways of contextualising your work, such as within the work itself or through the context of its publication.

Contextualising your creative practice research is important in that this is necessary, by definition, if you are seeking to make an original contribution to the field. You have to be able to demonstrate that it is original.

Usually, there are personal, cultural and socio-political context that could be important for framing your research, particularly as your new knowledge may be playing a role in your impact aims. Do not shy away from being personal. Research need not be confined between notions of objectivity. Your work does not have to be political or socio-economic in scope. You define your context.

Methodology and Methods

Methods are in essence a series of ‘systematic activities’ (UNESCO) that are employed to interrogate, investigate, explore or reflect on a research problem and its questions. A collection of methods are brought together to form a methodology; an overriding framework or strategy that has been designed because it is particularly suitable for accessing the new insights being sought. Most creative practitioners already engage in ’systematic activity’ as a natural part of their creative process and it is often a case of capturing and defining these as methods.

Different disciplines and fields traditionally employ clusters of methods that are particularly suited to the types of enquiry being undertaken in that discipline or field, but often we borrow these methods from each other, modify them and redeploy them to our own discipline or field. This is what is often meant by the term interdisciplinary research (as opposed to trans disciplinary, which is where researchers from different disciplines actually collaborate).

One of the defining features of creative practice research is that more often than not, our methodologies are built on a series of methods that involve the use of our creative practice itself. We investigate, interrogate, explore, analyse and reflect through and with our creative practice, often leaving a trail of creative debris that could be collected and organised in such a way that it would be useful material for documenting creative processes. In creative practice, understanding creative processes can in itself yield useful new insights that have research value.

Think of methods as activities someone else doing a completely different project could adopt as methods for their research. Methods are, therefore, by definition transferrable.

Documentation

Ideally, good research outputs should self-evidently reveal the new insights or knowledge created by the research project. The reason why we usually want to present our research findings in the form of creative practice outcomes is because we are trying to make an original contribution to the practice itself, its themes and subjects and its processes and that these new insights cannot necessarily be intellectualised or presented as dichotomous explanations. The knowledge is more tacit and tends to be embodied in the form itself and needs to be experienced. Because of the subjective nature of the experiential, and the use of peer reviewing as a means of assessing quality, this new knowledge may not be self-evident. Documentation, whether in the form of a simple short statement (as required by REF2014) or audio visual documentation of process, or ‘snap shots’ of a project in progress, or in the form of social media - and many other forms of documentation - succinct, well structured and well presented documentation can help a peer - or the general public - understand how to access the research findings in the outcomes.

This is not to substitute the primacy of the output as the main means of articulating research findings, but is there to provide an augmented experience of the research findings and how these findings were systematically arrived at.

New Knowledge, New Insights, New Applications

We are not all meant to be like Picasso or Beethoven. New knowledge, new insights, new understandings, new applications are much more likely to be incremental. You are making a contribution, not necessarily a revolution. It is key that your work points to some sort of advancement, enhancement, evolution, development of particular approaches, ideas, practices etc.

Knowledge can be tacit, embodied and experiential as well as factual and measurable. This new knowledge does not necessarily come from the production of a perfect product or output, but could be the consequence of obstacles and failure. It is the new knowledge that is important, not that a beautiful output has been created. The knowledge is not the output itself, but is made palpable by the output.

As impact agendas become increasingly important, it is useful to think of being able to point to this knowledge in such a way that a reasonably intelligent person outside your discipline can perceive it or be impacted by it, even if they don't fully understand it. Don't be deliberately obscure. Don't think that what you are doing is too sophisticated for others to perceive or experience. If others cannot perceive or experience your research findings, even if you have to help them a little with supporting materials, are you actually making and sharing an original contribution to knowledge?

Remember, all research is about a systematic investigation that leads to an enhancement of our knowledge about ourselves and the world in which we live. How does your creative work contribute to this aim?

Peer Review

In the arts and humanities almost all assessment of research quality is undertaken by our peers. We are all, as a creative practice community, involved in assessing each other’s work. In reality, it is the most experienced members of this community who do most of the peer reviewing and are thus the gatekeepers to everything from publications to funding opportunities. But remember, when we all select people to work with, to perform in our shows, to give them access to our dissemination pathways, and so on, we are in effect acting as peer reviewers.

There is a consistency across all research as to what peer reviewers are meant to evaluate. It boils down to three words/concepts: originality, rigour and significance. In a broad sense, a peer reviewer will look at your output and may ask:

has the researcher identified a gap in the knowledge of the creative practice concerned, and/or its relationships to themes and subjects and/or its processes, and are the findings evidenced in the output, therefore, making an original contribution to the practice and knowledge in this field? (For REF, they might ask, is that original contribution world leading?)
have the systematic activities and exploration been rigorous and original in design and execution?
are the findings of this research leading to new insights, new knowledge and new understandings that could be of significance and impact the field and beyond?

A publishing gateway may itself provide a peer review process. For example, a film festival selection, an award and a peer reviewed journal publication all involve peer assessment. These are particularly useful if there is evidence that the selection decisions are somehow related to the research component in the output.

Remember, that for REF evidencing other peer reviewing of your output is not essential as panels make up their own independent assessments. (A case in point is that publishers may have decided to publish your book, but that will not mean the REF panel will find it 3* or 4*. Likewise, The Tate may have decided to give you a solo exhibition, but the REF Panel may not find the output to be 3* or 4*. You may have done a small performance in some back street theatre in Preston, but the REF Panel could find the output world leading in its field.)

However, subliminally it may well help to be able to point to peer assessment elsewhere. People are often reassured by 'influencers' or the 'crowd'.

In Summary

When you look at your existing work, and are planning your new projects, it is worth using, designing and articulating your work within these broad terms from a research perspective. It should help us confidently engage with the wider research communities in other fields, both in terms of opening up to richer collaboration relationships, but also to ensure that we as a creative sector are at the table where decisions and funding arrangements are decided.