Practice-Based Research &Interdisciplinary PhDs

Alan Blackwell

Practice and Cambridge doctorates• 1800: doctorates in Divinity, Law, Medicine and Music recognised established reputation– derived from medieval guild memberships

• 1882: introduced ScD, for Cambridge graduates who had produced significant body of scientific work– 1900s: Competition from Germany awarding (essentially honorary) PhDs to research staff

• 1920s: Cambridge PhD introduced to compete for international students– Immediately awarded to many profs!– Regarded as ‘lesser’ than BA for many years

Traditions of professional practice

• Clinical medicine

• Ordination

• Barristers

• Chartered engineers

• Teaching certification

• Architecture

• … but now primarily the ‘Silicon Fen’

Segal Quince Wicksteed (1985) The Cambridge Phenomenon

A practice-based intervention

Created in 2000 “to encourage collaboration between technologists, and researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences.”

Academic

Public sector

Commercial

Crucible “house style”

• Start small and move fast

• Bring creative and design practices to technology

• Facilitate encounters between communities

• Cheerfully transgress academic borders

• Treat “Industry” as another discipline

• Engage with reflective social science

• Directly address public policy

Qualities of interdisciplinary innovation• Leaders and founders of inter-disciplines:– resist convention and maintain vision

– while being mentors and coaches

• Freedom requires resources

• Collaborations grow in years, not months

• Goals must offer serendipity, not constraint

• Maintain and reward curiosity

Setting an effective context for PhDs• Recruitment

– focus & rigour vs. flexibility & creativity

• Supervision models– network vs. committee

• Institutional models– programme vs. apprenticeship

Challenges in interdisciplinary PhDs• Balancing adventure and risk when recruitment relies on past reputation

• Supporting curiosity and serendipity within a coherent ‘pole star’ vision

• Constructing a new research language, if the student’s first language is not English

• Participating in a diverse research network where trust develops over years

Replicability in Practice-Based Research

Alan Blackwell

Replicability and the “scientific method”• PPP: Positivism, Popper and Paradigms

• The dogma of hypothesis testing, falsifiability

• Replication (and failure to replicate) as a driver of experimental scientific practice

• The TEA laser (Collins)

• Instruments and allies (Latour)

Replication and the scientific method• PPP: Positivism, Popper and Paradigms

• The dogma of hypothesis testing, falsifiability

• Replication (and failure to replicate) as a driver of experimental scientific practice

• The TEA laser (Collins)

• Instruments and allies (Latour)

Replication and the scientific method• PPP: Positivism, Popper and Paradigms

• The dogma of hypothesis testing, falsifiability

• Replication (and failure to replicate) as a driver of experimental scientific practice

• The TEA laser (Collins)

• Instruments and allies (Latour)

Replication in social science

• Experimental (laboratory) & survey studies– Quantitative measurement of behaviour– Sampling, statistics and distributions

• Naturalistic (case studies)– Natural setting, human “instruments”– Qualitative, inductive, grounded– Triangulation and convergence

• Experiential (phenomenological )– “Bracketing” of intent and interpretation

Replication of artworks

• Borges’ Man who Wrote Quixote

• Digital reproduction– digital rights debates: CODE & elsewhere

• Schleske’s violin studio– researching “tonal copies” of great works

• Forgeries, tributes, fair-use or authorised?

Classic “RDDA” vs action research

• Research– pure/theoretical

• Development– field setting

• Dissemination– via journals

• Adoption– by practitioners

• Data collection

• Form hypotheses

• Analytical validation

• Interpret by theory & practitioner judgement

• Action to “improve” situation

• Monitor by same research techniques

Alternative quality criteria to replicability

Successful research

• Active & involved

• Convergence of >2 activities / interests

• Intuition (timely / feeling “right”)

• Desire for theoretical understanding

• Real world value

Unsuccessful research

• Expedience (cheap, easy or quick)

• Focus on method or technique

• Motivation by funding or publication

• Lack of theory

From practice-based to professional practice• Replicability in fine art research plays the role of “clinical” research cases in professional fields:– in medical, social and legal disciplines

– in professional design disciplines

• Architecture– The design pattern (Alexander)– The reflective practitioner (Schön)

• Digital technologies as reified theory– Xerox PARC “inventing the future”– MIT Media Lab “demo or die”

From practice-based to professional practice• Replicability in fine art research plays the role of “clinical” research cases in professional fields:– in medical, social and legal disciplines

– in professional design disciplines

• Architecture– The design pattern (Alexander)– The reflective practitioner (Schon)

• Digital technologies as reified theory– Xerox PARC “inventing the future”– MIT Media Lab “demo or die”

People!People!

Urpo Tarnanen © Vigeland-museet

Pavel Novak: Wikipedia (Creative Commons)

Where are the people?Where are

the people?

Instrumental research and professionalism• Focus on instrumental outcomes implies social contribution, but also professional status

• Professional status leads to demands for:– Prioritisation within fixed budget– Value for money and accountability– Appraisal and evaluation (RAE)

• Consequences for research replicability– “Hard science drives out soft”

• Rigor or relevance in professional research?– Schön’s parable: the mountain and the swamp

Instrumental policy concerns

• Economic outcomes– Creative industries– Cultural regeneration

• Social instrumentalities– Therapy regimes (medical, criminal)

– Social capital– Quality of life measures– Reith’s “cement of the nation”

• Carey: What Good are the Arts?

Research replicability in policy context• Rhetoric of “best practice” around fine art research indicates demand for replicable process

• DCMS research agenda:– audience / market outcomes as impact measures

– civic accountability (via National Audit Office)

• AHRC knowledge transfer agenda:– Productisation via creative industries implies RDDA model in the arts, or

– Social science / design perspective: reflective practice toward process innovation in knowledge economy.