Rethinking ‘knowledge exchange’: new approaches to collaborative work in the arts and humanities

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. This paper explores approaches to collaborative work between arts and humanities disciplines in UK Higher Education and the creative economy. The paper examines the work of four Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy established by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). These hubs fund collaborative ‘knowledge exchange’ (KE) projects between creative businesses and academics in the arts and humanities. The paper first outlines the unclear relationship between knowledge exchange activities in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the creative economy. The second step unpacks the approaches to KE that the hubs are developing. The third step considers what the consequences of such projects might be. The paper concludes that such ‘third mission’ activities are never neutral or apolitical spaces. Rather, they are sites where assumptions about collaboration and creativity are being remade, and that this is a space for both opportunity and critique

Knowledge exchange in the arts and humanities as creative economy policy assemblage

The creative economy is a complex assemblage of policy, practice and industrial activity, underpinned by apparently novel configurations of cultural and creative work. In recent years, it has become the focus of a number of schemes which have seen major shifts in how UK research councils fund universities. This paper reflects on the work of Research and Enterprise in Arts and Creative Technology (REACT), a major knowledge exchange programme aimed at stimulating growth in thecreative sector through collaborations with universities in South West England and South Wales. In the first section, I unpack some of the underpinning logics of the ‘creative turn’ by which creativity has become a key currency in modern economies. I then consider how this shift has affected universities. I next ask how the various rationalities of an economy driven by creativity have moved into the knowledge exchange sphere. I approach this by formulating creative economy policy as a form of governmentality performed through assemblages that facilitatepolicy transfer. The paper turns to the empirical example of REACT, considering it as an assemblage through which reconfigurations of discourses, spatialities, temporalities, subjects and calculative practices have unfolded. The analysis shows how the multivalent, ad hoc and sometimes contradictory experience of producing an assemblage such as REACT means that policy transfer is never entirely complete nor stable, and that in this sense it is still possible for knowledge exchange programmes to imagine and generate alternative approaches to creativity that are not wholly reducible to a neoliberal or capitalist logic, although they remain implicated therein

Network for Creative Enterprise final report

The Network for Creative Enterprise (NfCE) was established in October 2017 to help freelancers, artists, creative practitioners, start-up microbusinesses, and small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in the West of England LEP area make a sustainable living from their creative ideas. The programme was awarded £1,000,000 by Arts Council England and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to achieve this ambition

Creative hubs: Understanding the new economy

A dynamic ecosystem of creative spaces and communities has developed over the last 10 years. This report has been commissioned to better understand their diverse value, processes and motivations and in doing so, analyse how best to support and stimulate the wider creative economy they are rooted in

Creative producers international report

Creative Producers International was an international talent development programme which worked with 15 Creative Producers based in cities across the globe. Their areas of expertise ranged from contemporary art, place making and community engagement through to corporate collaboration, urban innovation and social activism. We have spent the last three years asking urgent questions about place, identity and public space, and exploring how arts and culture can be empowered to take a leading role in the development of our future cities. Our aim was to form and amplify a network of connected ecologies of practice that influence, challenge and support each other, and build an international bank of knowledge and experience around city change

Evaluation of a group acceptance commitment therapy intervention for people with knee or hip osteoarthritis: a pilot randomized controlled trial

Objectives: The aim was to evaluate an Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) intervention for people with knee or hip osteoarthritis; a related aim was to compare treatment effects from Rasch-transformed and standard scales. Methods: Participants were recruited from a research database and outpatient rheumatology and orthopaedic clinics at two hospitals. Eligible participants were randomly allocated to either intervention or usual care. Intervention comprised six-sessions of group ACT. Outcomes were assessed two and four months after randomisation. Rasch-transformed and standard self-report measures were compared. Qualitative interviews also explored the acceptability of the intervention. Results: Of 8 people assessed for eligibility, 31 (36%) were randomised. The main reason for non-randomisation was that participants received surgery. Of the 16 participants randomised to intervention, 64% completed ≥50% of the scheduled group sessions. Follow-up data was complete for 84% participants at two months and 68% at four months. Outcome analysis demonstrated important differences between the Rasch-transformed and standard scales. There were significant differences between the groups in pain. Qualitative interviews with 7 participants suggested the intervention was acceptable. Conclusions: ACT for osteoarthritis is likely to be an acceptable treatment option for people with osteoarthritis. Progress to a definitive trial is warranted. Rasch-transformed outcome scales are preferable in clinical trials where possible

Personal experience of osteoarthritis and pain questionnaires: mapping items to themes

Purpose. The aim of this study was to examine the correspondence between qualitative and quantitative methods of coding experience of pain reported by participants with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Method. A mapping grid was produced to record the correspondence between subthemes that emerged from thematic analysis of interviews with 24 participants with knee OA, and from questionnaire items which were used in a study of 192 knee OA participants. Items were rated according to their degree of correspondence between subthemes and questionnaire items and an overall correspondence score was produced for each subtheme and questionnaire measure. Results. The subthemes that corresponded well with the questionnaire items were those that related to socio-emotional functioning, the overall experience of pain and the impact of pain on physical functioning. The questionnaire items did not relate to participants' knowledge about their condition and their experience of the medical system. Conclusions. The study indicated that many aspects of pain experience reported by patients in qualitative interviews are also assessed by commonly used questionnaire outcome measures for people with pain. However, although participants reported that knowledge about their condition and their experience of the medical system were important aspects of the overall pain experience, these are rarely used as outcome measures. Questionnaires that address these additional aspects ofthe pain experience could be useful to further evaluate the experience of pain and may help to address importance concerns raised by patients with OA of the knee

GW4 Bridging the Gap

Bridging the Gap identified that realising the full benefits of Arts and Humanities research collaborations requires deeper consideration of research relationships as processes rather than just a means to an end. A processual approach demonstrates the potential role of Arts and Humanities research collaborations within a dynamic regional creative and cultural ecosystem can achieve a number of successes

Contributing to the creative economy imaginary: universities and the creative sector

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper explores the relationship between the creative economy and universities. As funders, educators and research bodies, universities have a complicated relationship with the creative economy. They propagate its practice, ‘buying-in’ to the rhetoric and models of creative value, particularly in teaching, research and knowledge exchange. Third mission activities also play a role, seeking to affect change in the world ‘outside’ academia through collaboration, partnerships, commercialisation and social action. For arts and humanities disciplines, these practices have focused almost exclusively on the creative sector in recent years. This paper asks how the third mission has been a site where universities have modified their function in relation to the creative economy. It considers the mechanisms by which universities have been complicit in propagating the notion of the creative economy, strengthening particular constructions of the idea at the level of policy and everyday practice. It also briefly asks how a focus on alternative academic practice and institutional forms might offer possibilities for developing a more critical creative economy. The argument made is that the university sector is an important agent in the shaping and performance of the creative economy, and that we should take action if we wish to produce a more diverse, equitable space for learning, researching, and being under the auspices of ‘creativity’

The practice of cultural ecology: network connectivity in the creative economy

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. ABSTRACT: This paper reflects on approaches to collaborative knowledge exchange projects between UK universities and the creative economy. It develops a preliminary account of cultural ecology as a systematic approach to producing impact in the creative economy. It argues that such an approach is a powerful way to aggregate micro-businesses and small and medium sized enterprises in a meaningful network of new relationships. The paper uses social network analysis software to begin to visualise the pattern of relationships that constitute the ecosystem. The paper reports on the work of the Research and Enterprise for Arts and Creative Technologies Hub, one of four Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy established by the Arts and Humanities Research Council