Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities 5 Year Review
2014–2019
Member Higher Education Institutions 1. Aberdeen:
11. Dumfries:
14. Glasgow:
University of Aberdeen Robert Gordon University
University of Glasgow
University of Glasgow The Glasgow School of Art Royal Conservatoire of Scotland University of Strathclyde University of the West of Scotland
12. Dundee: 2. Dingwall 3. Elgin 4. Fort William 5. Inverness 6. Isle of Skye 7. Oban 8. Orkney 9. Thurso 10. Shetland: University of the Higlands and Islands
University of Dundee Abertay University 13. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh Napier University Queen Margaret University
15. St Andrews: University of St Andrews 16. Stirling: University of Stirling
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Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities
“The training landscape that SGSAH has facilitated has transformed the support available to research students in Scotland. We now offer an unrivalled range of opportunities – from the annual Summer School, with more than 40 workshops, to our internship programme delivered with strategic partners which includes artist residencies for our practice-based creative researchers.” Professor Dorothy Miell Vice Principal and Head of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences University of Edinburgh Co-Chair SGSAH Board
Contents Director’s Welcome
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Research
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National Productivity Investment Fund Awards
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Case Studies: Lucie Whitmore & Mona Bozdog
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Events and Training
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Summer School
Cohort Development Fund
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Knowledge Exchange and Partnerships
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Internships/Artist Residencies
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Artist Residencies: Richy Carey & Marta Bernal Valencia
Programmes
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Case Study: Shona Main
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Research Residencies
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Scottish Universities Research Collections Associate Scheme
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Director’s Welcome
Director’s Welcome The Scottish Graduate School for Arts amd Humanities (SGSAH) launched in 2014. The world’s first national graduate school for the arts and humanities, it remains the only such graduate school in the world. SGSAH is a partnership of 16 HEIs, working together and sharing our resources to enrich the doctoral training environment and enhance the doctoral experience. As a partnership organisation, our ambition has been to provide more than 1750 arts and humanities doctoral researchers across Scotland with unsurpassed access to the best expertise, resources, and training opportunities available across our membership and in collaboration with our industry partners. Working together, we aim to nurture and inspire a future generation of enlightened leaders committed to generating and mobilising new insights across scholarly, professional and public communities. Now more than ever it is vital that our doctoral researchers are alert to their influence and impact as knowledge makers, co-creators and connectors and guided in their actions by what SGSAH stands for: Respect, Integrity, Creativity, and Collaboration. As the founding Dean/Director of SGSAH, it has been a privilege to work with colleagues across Scotland to build an organisation that in a relatively short time has delivered significant impact on the landscape of doctoral training. The extent of partnership working across our 16 HEIs, from co-supervision to shared training to new doctoral peer networks is unprecedented. The enthusiasm and generosity of our industry supporters – from the Highlands & Islands to the Borders – has been crucial to our success. Across the span of just five years we have offered our doctoral researchers opportunities to undertake interdisciplinary research methods training facilitated by leading scholars across and beyond the arts and humanities; to take up exciting internships across the creative, heritage, and third sectors; to design innovative training in collaboration with peers across Scotland; and to access flagship skills development events including our annual Summer School. In 2014, we launched SGSAH with an ambitious plan. We hope that our 5-Year Anniversary Review demonstrates that this plan – a paper document – has become a dynamic, living reality. We continue to be ambitious of the difference we can make to our doctoral researchers’ experiences, but also ambitious of the differences our highly skilled doctoral researchers can make across and beyond Scotland. SGSAH is, at its heart, an organisation that builds bridges.
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Director’s Welcome
SGSAH’s achievements thus far have been dependent on the generosity and ongoing support of our main funders, the Scottish Funding Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, our 16 Higher Education Institution members, our industry supporters and our academic and professional administrative colleagues. We are grateful for all the contributions – and quite often really hard graft – we receive on a daily basis. Of course, without our doctoral researchers, SGSAH would not exist. So I end this introduction by thanking that community: for their dreams and aspirations, their insights and creativity, their care and compassion, their enthusiasm and engagement. Five years is enough time for someone to start and finish their PhD; enough time to witness them becoming a Dr and taking the next step in their post-doctoral journey, whatever that might be and wherever it might take them; enough time to celebrate the publication of their first monograph and smile inwardly at the news that they are supporting future doctoral researchers. As I said, it has been a privilege to be the founding Dean/ Director of SGSAH. Thank you. We begin our next five years with ambitious plans for even more collaboration across members and partners, further enhancing the quality of the doctoral experience in Scotland. We hope you’ll join us on our continuing adventure.
Professor Dee Heddon, Director
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22
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22% of doctoral researchers working across multiple HEIs
Research SGSAH supports the development of new research in the arts and humanities, nurturing and inspiring future generations of researchers who are committed to generating and mobilising new insights across society. Over the past five years, 340 PhDs have been funded through SGSAH with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Scottish Funding Council. Our prestigious studentships are awarded annually, distributing £2.6M through a highly competitive process, where more than 200 applications are received for 54 places. The rigour of the process is assured through the contributions of 40 academic and industry partner reviewers. Our doctoral researchers demonstrate academic excellence, and our research outputs are at the leading edge of arts and humanities disciplines on a global scale. As we approach the end of our first five-year funding cycle, we have 41 alumni who have
completed their PhDs and are now transitioning to a diverse range of roles in both academia and industry.
to access knowledge, expertise and facilities across the country that add value to the thesis.
We fund projects across all disciplines of the arts and humanities, from Scottish Literature and Classics to Visual Arts and Museum Studies. Topics range from a study of gender equality in contemporary Scottish writing and publishing to philosophical perspectives on the stigma of mental illness.
The SGSAH team has developed robust processes for administering PhD applications at national scale and for communicating these developments across our stakeholder groups. Working with our partner Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), we have created a collaborative operational model that pools resources and provides an enriching environment for arts and humanities researchers across Scotland.
The research produced spans the breadth of the arts and humanities with PhDs in established fields, such as philosophy and history to emerging fields such as video games and comic studies. The methods used to drive the research are diverse and innovative, with researchers making use of the latest technologies in communication, virtual reality and artistic practice to fully realise the potential of their research. This is only possible with input from across our partnership allowing researchers
SGSAH encourages partnerships across its membership, aiming to provide our funded students with the best research environment in Scotland. 22% of our doctoral researchers are supported by supervisors from across at least two HEIs. The opportunity to forge new scholarly communities and networks across HEI borders is a key benefit of a national-level organisation.
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18 340 studentships awarded
£ Mil Over £18 million invested in PhD funding
National Productivity Investment Fund Awards In addition to our core funding, SGSAH has made five successful bids to Arts and Humanities Research Council funding streams linked to the UK Government’s National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF). This work has delivered £1.78 million into the Scottish arts and humanities research sector, funding 17 PhDs and nine postdoctoral opportunities. At a strategic level, our work in this area highlights the importance of the arts and humanities disciplines in supporting technological innovations. In 2017 we were awarded £900,000 to support 13 fully-funded Creative
Economies PhDs, with projects rooted in the creative and digital sectors. A further award of £314,000 allowed us to support four more studentships focusing on Artificial Intelligence and Data-Driven Research. These collaborative projects involve researchers applying the research methods and thinking of the arts and humanities within the context of emerging technologies and computer science. Other funding bids have extended our work into the post-doctoral landscape. Since 2017, we have supported seven Early Career
Researchers through two rounds of Creative Economy Engagement Fellowships, winning an additional £458,000. The Fellows undertook projects in partnership with HEIs and industry to investigate areas linked to Scotland’s creative economy and digitisation in the heritage sector. We also offered two NPIF Innovation Placements providing recently completed doctoral candidates with the opportunity to explore career options in industry linked to their research.
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Image Credit: The Delineator, July 1917 issue.
Lucie Whitmore Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership
Research: Case Studies
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HEI
University of Glasgow
PhD Title
Women’s Fashion in First World War Britain
Activities Lucie made significant use of the opportunities available to her as a SGSAH AHRC funded researcher. As well as being supported for research trips to London, Portsmouth and Exeter, Lucie was a SGSAH intern at the Museum of Edinburgh developing a new costume gallery for the museum which brought items previously hidden in the archives into public view. Lucie subsequently supported SGSAH interns through our Doctoral Internship Peer Support Network by giving them the benefit of her experience of conducting an internship during her PhD. She also displayed the impact of her research at the flagship SGSAH Research Showcase event attended by her peers, academics and industry partners. Lucie is also one of the co-founders of War Through Other Stuff, a society dedicated to alternative histories of conflict. The society was supported in its inception by SGSAH along with the University of Edinburgh, Chalke Valley History Trust and the Royal Historical Society. It launched with a three day conference in Edinburgh with talks, a film showing and a reception at the Museum of Edinburgh.
What is Lucie doing now? Lucie successfully completed her PhD and is now a Fashion Curator at the Museum of London. We are delighted that Lucie continues to work with us at SGSAH and facilitated a workshop at the SGSAH Summer School in 2018 on Building Your Own Conference.
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Image Credit: Mona Bozdog’s Incholm Project, photographer Erika Stevenson
Mona Bozdog Applied Research Collaborative Studentship
Research: Case Studies
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Research: Case Studies
HEI
Abertay University and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Partner Organisation
National Theatre of Scotland
PhD Title
Connecting Performance and Play. Establishing Interdisciplinary Design Methods for the Development of Games and Performances
Activities One of the many activities undertaken by Mona related to her research was the Incholm Project. This project involved designing a site-specific performance that acted as an extension to the award-winning game, Dear Esther. Dear Esther is a strongly narrative-focused game set around exploration of an island. With the Incholm Project, Mona aimed to do the same by applying theatre and game design methods to create a fictional world; bringing together the virtual environment of the game with the uninhabited Scottish island of Incholm. Mona and her team created an augmented exploration of the island, with a series of location-triggered audio narrations, visual installations and live musical vignettes. Designed as a proof of concept the Incholm Project gained national press and provided a highly unique experience for those in attendance.
What is Mona doing now? Mona will shortly be submitting her thesis and has been appointed as a Lecturer in Immersive Experience Design at Abertay University. We are also delighted to have continued our working relationship with Mona who was part of our selection panel for the 2019 SGSAH Research Showcase event.
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Events and Training
Events and Training Our national partnership status allows us to draw down unique expertise from across our members and share it through a variety of training platforms for the benefit of all doctoral researchers. These range from residential training programmes, to archival-based projects, to one-day training events.
We have worked with partners to deliver training sessions including sound archive training, heritage careers, third sector work, data visualisation, creative enterprise, material cultures and more. We collaborated with 10 scholars across eight of our HEIs to develop Theories of Knowledge, an online course on the use of theoretical
concepts in research. We also deliver an annual research methods training programme, Spring into Methods, with our colleagues at the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. This sees academics across Scotland deliver multi-day training courses on their specialist field of research methodology, from oral history, to feminism, to research in conflict zones.
Summer School “Events like the Summer School, which bring folk together, bring us out of our institutions, make us step back from the research, and engage, socialise and learn together are so important.” Summer School 2018 Attendee
Our flagship SGSAH Summer School takes place each June in Glasgow. Running since 2015 it has become a fixture of the calendar for arts and humanities PhDs. The Summer School brings together researchers and external partners from all over Scotland and beyond. We offer a range of practical workshops, talks, masterclasses and lectures responding to the latest developments in the sector and the needs of researchers. The breadth of workshops demonstrates the wide variety of expertise available through our networks. Workshops offered by colleagues and partners have included such varied topics as podcasting in academia, making the best use of peer review, intellectual
property in the creative industries, publishing, public engagement and GDPR. The Summer School also acts as a unique place for us to engage with our growing alumni group, with 2018 seeing our first group of alumni engage with the Summer School as facilitators rather than participants, continuing their relationship with SGSAH, sharing their expertise and developing their facilitation skills upon completion of their PhDs. The Summer School is where we host our annual Research Showcase, creatively exhibiting the work of doctoral researchers from across the country. Also in its fifth year, the Showcase offers funding to selected PhD Researchers and Early Career Researchers to highlight the impact of their research in as innovative a way as possible.
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410 410 hours of instruction at SGSAH Summer Schools
6330 1065
6330 training places offered at workshops over five years
1065 doctoral researchers engaged through training
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Cohort Development Fund
Cohort Development Fund The Cohort Development Fund (CDF) supports unique initiatives that address both disciplinary and interdisciplinary training needs of doctoral researchers in the arts and humanities. The fund is currently open to staff and doctoral researchers across our 16 member HEIs and allows them to identify gaps in training provision across the sector and to collaborate with their peers to address this. Working on a CDF application provides doctoral researchers with the opportunity to develop their collaboration, team work and networking skills, their funding application skills, event planning and delivery skills, budgeting skills, and evaluation and report writing skills.
The CDF encourages the creation of new peer networks, new collaborations between HEIs and new interactions with organisations outside the academy. In the last five years, we have funded 60 CDF activities involving over 1000 participants from 15 HEIs. Past events range from a multidiscipline conference celebrating women who have shaped Scotland through the creative and artistic industries, to a one-day workshop addressing the difficulties facing doctoral researchers who handle distressing content related to human trauma. Other projects have had long-term effects in developing particular interest groups, such as the inception of a Scottish Medical Humanities Networks.
“Getting Cohort Development Funding was a great experience and showed us first-hand what the other side of the conference is like... in terms of the intellectual and theoretical frameworks that underpin them.” Consuelo Martino, PhD Candidate University of St Andrews
Image Credit: Christian Ferlaino with Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, photograph courtesy of Christina Voigt
The AHRC is proud to work with world leading universities, such as those in Scotland, and their partners in order to ensure the next generation of academic scholarship continues.” Anne Sofield, Associate Director of Programmes, Arts and Humanities Research Council
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Knowledge Exchange and Partnerships
Knowledge Exchange and Partnerships Partnership is central to how SGSAH operates and this collaborative ethos is pivotal to our Knowledge Exchange Strategy, which connects arts and humanities research to the wider world for mutual benefit. In being part of a national graduate school, our doctoral researchers benefit from the extensive opportunities to collaborate and network across the cohort, and beyond institutional boundaries. This networked structure also offers our external partners in public, private and third sector organisations a unified access point to arts and humanities researchers across Scottish universities. This has the mutually beneficial effect of extending the impacts of research and the skills of researchers to industry partners, while ensuring that research is framed in terms of industry needs. In the past five years, we have developed an engaged and supportive network of over 250 organisations of all types and sizes, spanning the
public, private and third sectors. This includes our core partners at BBC Scotland, the National Trust for Scotland, the Scottish Cultural Heritage Consortium, the Scottish Parliament and the V&A Museum. Our partnership activities include collaborative research projects, where PhDs are undertaken with ongoing support and input from a partner organisation working in the doctoral candidate’s field of research. Our Applied Research Collaborative Studentships (ARCS), for example, have benefited from the participation
of a wide range of partners, including the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Orkney Museum and Police Scotland. SGSAH internships and artist residencies have taken place across a range of organisational settings, including the Glasgow Women’s Library, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Deveron Projects and the RSPB. Through our partner connections, we have offered our doctoral researchers a programme of career focussed events and training, with a view to informing employment pathways beyond the academy.
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100 Over 100 projects supported
£K
370 £370,000 invested in Knowledge Exchange activities
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hrs
43,125 hours of internships and residencies
43,125 70 organisations have hosted an intern or artist in residence
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Internships/Artist Residencies
Internships/Artist Residencies SGSAH’s Internship and Artist Residency programme demonstrates best practice in terms of knowledge exchange between academia and the wider world. Each year, SGSAH supports around 30 arts and humanities doctoral researchers to take up paid internships or residencies across all sectors. Recent projects have supported a wide range of partners working across Scotland to deliver innovative programmes in line with their strategic objectives. Projects have also resulted in the creation of a diverse range of cultural and creative products. This includes artwork and creative outcomes such as the sonic flock
installation at An Lanntair in Stornoway and the creation of a costume gallery at the Museum of Edinburgh. Outputs have included a film-making training package at Shetland Archive, good practice guidelines for BBC Radio Scotland and a 3D printing toolkit for Archaeology Scotland. Our placements have produced research tools tailored to the strategic objectives of the host organisations. Examples include: a model for strengthening Dundee’s cultural sector for Creative Dundee; a review of public art across the City of Edinburgh Council; and recommendations on capturing the history of the Scottish Parliament.
In 2017 the SGSAH Internship and Artist Residency programme won a University of Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Award in the category of Best Collaboration (Arts and Culture). In 2018 we were finalists in the Herald Higher Education Awards for Outstanding Employer Engagement in Universities and were shortlisted for a Times Higher Education Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts.
Image Credit: Kim Walker, artist in residence at Scottish Crannog Centre
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Image Credit: Richy Carey, film still from Accents
Richy Carey Artist Residency
Internships/Artist Residencies: Case Studies
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Internships/Artist Residencies: Case Studies
HEI
University of Glasgow and The Glasgow School of Art
Artist Residency
UNESCO City of Music Residency at Glasgow Life
In 2018/19 SGSAH worked in partnership with Glasgow Life to offer the first ever UNESCO City of Music Artist Residency, which was undertaken by Richy Carey who is completing his PhD at the University of Glasgow in collaboration with The Glasgow School of Art. Adopting an innovative, community-based approach, the project involved working with a range of community groups and choirs across the city, and was supported throughout by Glasgow Life’s Arts and Music teams. Richy created a new film and choral work, Accents, investigating the idea of accents in Glasgow today. The project culminated in a one-off public performance at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in March 2019, where all of the choirs and participants came together to perform the score live alongside the film. The choral work was composed in a form that can be easily adapted for performance by choirs in other UNESCO Cities of Music to present the unique identity and accents of their own city. Glasgow’s place as a UNESCO City of Music is an important accolade for the city, and for Scotland as a whole, recognising its significant contributions to the global music scene. Richy’s project has drawn on the power of research to drive cultural innovation, and has established Glasgow as a leading centre for the UNESCO City of Music movement. Through this project, Richy has worked with a wide and diverse range of stakeholders, from community groups through to venue staff and strategic leaders at Glasgow Life. He has managed a complex, multi-stream project and delivered a high-profile public engagement event as an output of his work. In terms of impact on wider society, the project brought together 400 participants to share the joy of music in a unique and innovative context. This included the participation of five choir groups across the city as well as workshops with four other cultural groups in the city. Around 350 people attended the final event at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
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Internships/Artist Residencies: Case Studies
Marta Bernal Valencia Internship
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Internships/Artist Residencies: Case Studies
HEI
University of Edinburgh
Internship
Mapping the Landscape of the Creative Industries in Scotland at Creative Scotland
In 2016/17 Creative Scotland hosted SGSAH intern Marta Bernal Valencia from the University of Edinburgh as one of two interns to investigate academic activity on the creative industries in Scotland, with a view to informing policy and enhancing support for the sector. Over the course of the 3-month internship, Marta researched activity across Scottish HEIs, identifying key themes and centres of global excellence. Marta produced a database which signposts research and researchers, and is still used by staff across Creative Scotland to develop mutually beneficial partnerships. This embedded knowledge exchange infrastructure has enabled Creative Scotland to identify emergent evidence to support future policy directions, with a particular focus on sustainability and the growth of the creative industries. As an additional outcome, the University of Edinburgh hosted a workshop in which academics, practitioners and policymakers explored and identified areas of current research and future research plans and possibilities, which impact and inform policy based decision-making. Through this internship, Marta developed expertise in the Scottish creative industries and supported Creative Scotland to develop policies tackling the most urgent needs of the sector based on robust academic studies.
“SGSAH has become a model of partnership and collaboration and it is playing an incredibly important role for the arts and humanities in Scotland. I am delighted that SFC has been able to work with the AHRC on the development of SGSAH and I look forward to the continued success of the School.” Dr Stuart Fancey, Director of Research and Innovation at the Scottish Funding Council (SFC)
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Programmes Student Development Fund For those doctoral researchers in receipt of Arts and Humanities Research Council studentship funding, there is an opportunity to be a visiting doctoral researcher in an international context. Doctoral researchers have been supported to spend time at prestigious institutions across the world including the University of Auckland, Yale University and Freie Universität Berlin. They have been able to develop new international networks and draw down additional supervisory support from worldleading experts in their fields of study. Additional funding is also available to support language learning. Doctoral researchers have immersed themselves
in languages across the world from Gaelic to Arabic with this feeding directly into their research. SDF also funds archival and fieldwork trips where researchers have been able to see the core of their research topic first-hand, accessing expertise and resources which would not have been possible without funding. Over the past five years, our funded students have travelled to every continent with the exception of Antarctica. From as close to home as Shetland and Dublin, to as far as New Zealand and the Arctic, this funding allows our research to grow and expand into a truly international context.
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Image Credit: Shona Main
Shona Main Student Development Fund
Programmes: Case Studies
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Programmes: Case Studies
HEI
University of Stirling
PhD Title
The Space between documentarist and subject: the quietly radical ideas and ethics of Jenny Gilbertson
Shona’s research at the University of Stirling looks at documentarian Jenny Gilbertson, the legendary filmmaker whose 1978 programme Jenny’s Arctic Diary saw her embedded in an Inuit community 700 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Shona’s plan was an ambitious one, to follow in the footsteps of Gilbertson and visit the remote community captured in film 40 years ago to see the changes in the community since then. Whilst Grise Ford has undergone significant social and political changes, the settlement is still as isolated as it was when Gilbertson visited. The community has one month of summer, with winter days going by in complete darkness, and the island is only accessible by one airstrip and a supply ship that visits once a year. As well as the challenges of visiting such a remote place, the need to speak in Inukitut was a vital component of the trip. Shona saw the ability to communicate as easily as possible as a central part of both her research and her position as an ethical researcher. Through the Student Development Fund we were able to support Shona in learning the language. Training took place in Grise Ford where Shona not only learned the language but also got a feel for travel and life at the settlement. Shona subsequently spent 6-months at the settlement, exploring both Gilbertson’s and her own approach to filmmaking.
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Research Residencies
Research Residencies “The surrounding natural environment gave the impression of distance between you and the buzz of daily life. Most importantly, Cove Park gave me the space and the time to think through the areas of my work that I have found most difficult and time-consuming. I have progressed particular ideas owing to the quietness and solitude offered by my week long stay.”
Each year we offer doctoral researchers in arts and humanities the opportunity to spend up to two weeks in an inspiring location to focus on a period of research and development in their PhD work. SGSAH is committed to connecting arts and humanities research with Scotland’s unique cultural resources, including beautiful and inspiring locations that offer space for creativity and reflection. We work with a range of carefully selected
partners that have an existing residency offer to provide researchers with a truly supported experience. Since the initial pilot in 2015 we have funded seven doctoral researchers from five HEIs to benefit from a Research Residency at venues across Scotland, from Hospitalfield in Arbroath to The Bothy on the Isle of Eigg.
Cassice Last, University of St Andrews, Cove Park, 19-26 March 2018
Scottish Universities Research Collections Associate Scheme The Scottish Universities Research Collections Associate Scheme (SURCAS) supports doctoral researchers in the arts and humanities to undertake short-term research/ knowledge exchange projects with collections, culminating in a public engagement outcome. Scotland’s universities have rich and diverse special research collections held in museums and archives. SURCAS offers collaborating collections the opportunity to benefit from the expertise of doctoral researchers in highlighting the hidden treasures in their archives.
Seven projects have been funded through the scheme to date, offering doctoral researchers the opportunity to explore unique resources and develop public engagement skills through the final project outputs. SURCAS projects have included uncovering Naken chaetrie (the material culture of Gypsy/Travellers) at the University of Aberdeen’s Davidson’s Collections and Suffragette Cities, which identified materials related to the suffrage movement across Scottish HEI archives and special collections.
“Having the opportunity to engage with SGSAH and its positive outward-facing attitude, enables us to connect in a supported and effective way, facilitating a real sense of common purpose.” Clive Gillman, Director of Creative Industries, Creative Scotland; Advisory Board member of SGSAH Creative Economies Knowledge Exchange Hub
www.sgsah.ac.uk enquiries@sgsah.ac.uk twitter.com/sgsah_
