David Gauntlett considers what scholars from other disciplines, not just in the arts and humanities, can learn from the way that artists do research.
In the world of academic research, artists and art schools can have a difficult time. Their methods and ways of thinking about things are often messy, unscripted processes, involving lots of trial-and-error making of stuff and collaboration with people from totally different walks of life, let alone disciplines. Their outputs are strikingly different from most formal outputs of scientific research, and nothing like the journal articles produced in other arts and humanities subjects such as literature or philosophy.
Added to this, even arts funders are queasy about non-traditional or creative work. The British Academy, for instance, supports the humanities, but resists innovation in how grant applicants might explore humanities questions. Creative practice-based outputs are outside the academy’s remit, its guidance notes say.