OPEN SPACE INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION SUMMARY
This was a broad, yet engaging debate about the Commercial vs Artistic in which the participants discussed tensions in creative practice between academic constraints/requirements, those within creative and artistic endeavours, and those of a commercial nature.
In part, the session aimed to consider how academic, artistic, or commercial practitioners frame their research, and how this is measured or quantified per se. The group discussed shifts and undercurrents in the university sector over the last ten years or thereabouts, that have matched institutional or government agendas (post-incorporation changes particularly) to focus on consumer-driven models within education and research.
In this respect the group discussed metrics such as REF, KEF, the current employability agenda, and how the criteria of these regimes dictate what research, and practice-based research especially, should look like.
We discussed the need for differentiated models that define research within the creative arts, from the perspective that practice-based research is not particularly well matched towards sectorial drives for income. In other words, the group articulated concerns that research has become increasingly framed in commercial terms as opposed to exploration, expression, or in the pursuit of knowledge.
The group shared specific examples of creative practice and their experiences of industry and academia, towards a conclusion that current external or institutional influences that drive commercial research (STEM) or business and enterprise are not always pertinent to creative practice/research.