Art + Science as Planetary Practice

This Research & Knowledge Exchange Doctoral Project brief summarises our priority areas of research interest under the heading of: Art + Science as Planetary Practice: Fieldwork, critical ecologies and site-sensitive artistic research

We welcome all research degree applications aligned with and in response to this brief.

This doctoral brief will examine how art-science collaborations can move beyond communication or illustration to become transformative Third Spaces for ecological research, public learning and institutional change.  

Working across climate science, ecology and artistic research, it asks how site-sensitive artistic practice can generate knowledge about living systems while also opening the social, philosophical and cultural questions those systems raise. The brief is conceived as one of the first UK doctoral studies to treat arts-practice an active research site through which scientific research, ecological effects, situated knowledge and public meaning can be investigated together. 

As an art-science laboratory the doctoral projects under this brief will ask: 

• What forms of change can transdisciplinary art-science collaborations produce or reveal?  
• What practices best support equitable co-inquiry in art, climate, ecology, and sustainability contexts? 
• How can dissent within art-science collaborations create more equitable Third Spaces for knowledge-making?  
• How do feminist, decolonial and more-than-human perspectives challenge scientific norms of observation, authority, value and evidence? 

Methods may include practice-based research, collaborative art-science fieldwork, interspecies co-creation, ecological observation, interviews, participant observation, public workshops, critical theory analysis and reflective documentation. 

The project should remain open to candidates from art, design, performance, science communication and related fields, provided they critically investigate art-science collaboration as a research method and as a cultural intervention.  

The project directly supports SDG 13 Climate Action, SDG 15 Life on Land, SDG 4 Quality Education, SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities and SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals. 

Projects deriving from this brief are expected to sit within the Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy and the following Department.

All successful research degree project proposals must emphasise a clear alignment between the project idea and our Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy.