Conceptual Foundations
FilmEU_RIT’s two constitutive foundational elements are artistic research as a thematic and methodological unit, and the transformation modules as processual tools.
Artistic research as it is defined in the Vienna Declaration of 2020 is foundational to the research pilots in FilmEU_RIT. Rather than assuming a distance between theory and practice, artistic research is a methodology that integrates the practice of art directly into the research process. Unlike traditional academic research, which often maintains a distance between the researcher and the subject, artistic research sees art practice itself as both a means and an end of inquiry. Artistic research is practice-based, practice-led epistemic inquiry in the arts where excellence is found through means of high-level artistic practice and reflection. The aim is to increase knowledge and insights through the act of creation, making the artistic process and its outcomes central to the research endeavour.
The FilmEU Alliance adopted four transformation modules defined under call. The starting point was the acknowledgement of the low level of research intensity of all participating HEIs and their specific focus in artistic education, film and media arts, and the creative and cultural industries.
This module addresses the challenge of defining the profile of the research carried by the Alliance. The specific nature of that research – artistic practice-based research – implies this module merges the agenda and resources components into one single module. This module entails the development of a concrete roadmap that identifies the actions needed in order to attain the objectives defined both in FilmEU_RIT and under the research agenda already developed in the E+ FilmEU application. This involves developing a common research & innovation agenda and convergence action plan between FilmEU Hub, as the structure that hosts the dynamic clusters, and the objectives and goals of these clusters. This involves pooling expertise, data, and resources and developing a concrete action plan for internationalization, namely in terms of joint actions that can result in new applications and synergies. In order to test the model of the dynamic clusters, the module includes one pilot in each one of the predefined axes of the Hub.
This module addresses the objective of transforming the Alliance into a critical cultural intermediary. This module involves inducing and upscaling cooperation between the innovative networks inside the Alliance and external actors, including associated partners of the Alliance, in order to boost the “Know-Who” dimension in our model. This module involves engaging stakeholders outside of the Alliance in research and innovation in order to produce outcomes that address relevant societal impact. Four pilots are foreseen under the module.
This module addresses the need to reinforce the competences and research HR critical mass of the Alliance. It involves developing and implementing strategies for strengthening human capital in research and innovation and for enabling balanced brain circulation via the development of a common human resources strategy. This involves four pilot actions in the form of a common recruitment system that increases the attractiveness of the Alliance; a common system for PhD students’ attractiveness and inclusion in R&I activities; and a common system for rewarding researchers.
This module addresses the need for the overall valorisation and legitimization of the Alliance and involves exploring joint structures and sharing best practices across European Universities, facilitating collaboration in activities that could be common to all alliances and generally increasing the ability of the Alliance to intervene at policy-making level. It includes two pilot actions.
Research Agenda
FilmEU joint research agenda departs from the theoretical framework on Artistic Research and its methodologies and builds on four core foundational elements in view of increasing the Alliance R&I capacitation. It is a roadmap of activities and objectives that will allow the institution to attain the defined objectives by ensuring its transformation and adaptability in face of internal and external challenges and related opportunities.
Theoretical Framework – Artistic research
Timeline – 2021-2023
Resources and Budget – Funding from H2020
All four FilmEU_RIT members are comprehensive universities, schools of art and low-intensity R&I HEIs. FilmEU_RIT promoted the expansion and improvement of the joint research capacity of the partnered institutions and their ability to disseminate with greater impact the creative outcomes resulting from artistic research endeavours they supported, further reinforcing the prominence of artistic research in the European Higher Education Area. Capacitating and increasing visibility and impact of artistic research is a thematic and methodological focus.
Artistic Research brings together existing interests and expertise across all members. Artistic research is a new and promising interdisciplinary field that can support both the differentiation and impact of the alliance R&I activities.
Long-term goals – FilmEU as a Research and Innovation intermediary for the cultural and creative sectors.
Specific objectives – The structure of the joint research agenda of FilmEU consists of 1) the set-up of collaborative networks, 2) the attraction and retention of talent, 3) the design and implementation of support services and 4) the pioneering of support structures.
Areas of focus of the agenda
The setup of collaborative networks sparks from the FilmEU Strategic Plan for Research Capacitation, or SPARC, allowing the strategic and structural formation of innovative collaboration networks called Dynamic Clusters.
Implementation of mechanisms for the attraction and retention of talent concerns pathways for training and the implementation of a tenure track. This included three specific activities: the first one was an evaluation of existing careers models and retention strategies; the second one was the design of a pilot tenure model and the third one the actual pilot of this model via a concrete call. Following the successful implementation of the pilot another larger application for funding was made to FCT - The Portuguese science foundation to fund extra positions and an ERA talents application is currently being prepared. Nurturing talent also involved the creation of opportunities for knowledge sharing and the generation of new collaboration opportunities through mobility
The design and implementation of Support services is focused on the implementation of a RIT Office responsible for the overarching FilmEU pre- and post-award services. The RIT Office will be digitally supported by the community building platform called FilmEU commUNITY . At the core of FilmEU_RIT is our joint research agenda advancing the visibility and impact of artistic research. This is done in three parts. First, by providing open access to the research data generated by the FilmEU_RIT research pilots on Zenodo . Second, by providing open access to the to the media arts projects and FilmEU films created within the FilmEU Alliance on OPEN FilmEU . And third, by providing dissemination support of these artistic research processes and research results by organising an annual exhibition on artistic research called ARE . Additional support was designed and implemented in the form of a specific toolkit dedicated to innovation. This toolkit target innovation ideation and generation but also the provision of specific services linked to innovation in particular on project incubation and more in general institutional transformation in view of increased innovation.
The design and implementation of research and innovation support structures concerns the implementation of the FilmEU Hub.
Action Plan
Area of Focus: Collaborative Networks
PODS: Dynamic Research Clusters, SPARC
Action plan item: FUNDING AND R&I PILOTS
The action plan to support collaboration networks consists of competitive calls for seed funding (FilmEU_RIT D2.1). The aim of the seed funding initiative is to support the initiation of long-term collaborative activities between the partner HEIs. The idea is to plant a seed that ambitions to attract external funding. This plan has been systematized in the form of the Strategic Plan for Artistic Research Capacitation (SPARC ) which is a core part of the FilmEU_RIT Vision Document on Managing Science in FilmEU beyond 2024 (FilmEU_RIT D6.2). The seed funding model was designed with a three folded objective: to target the capacitation of researchers; to promote collaboration and foster joint networks and to support the emergence of more R&I sustainable structures. The first model at the individual level assumed the form of the Collegium funding; the team level assumed the form of the Dynamic Research Clusters and the structural level assumed the form of the Centres of Excellence (or COE).
Area of Focus: Support services
PODS: Innovation Toolkit, ARE (Artistic Research Exhibition), Scientific Journals & conferences, OPEN FilmEU
Action plan item: ENGAGEMENT
These PODS focus on the dissemination of knowledge and open access results for other researchers and stakeholders. Besides providing open access to the artistic works through OPEN FilmEU, FilmEU_RIT launched a special issue on artistic research and an open access scientific journal to publish results and contribute to the state of the art in artistic research. To disseminate artistic research results FilmEU_RIT researchers participated in conferences and Summits (FilmEU_RIT D6.4, D6.5 and D6.6). To maximise artistic results impact FilmEU_RIT ambitioned an annual artistic research exhibition (or ARE) which is accompanied by public research round tables with contributing artistic researchers. FilmEU is also committed to providing a transformative learning experience across society on the crossroads of artistic research and innovation. The Innovation Toolkit was designed to aid strategic envisioning at higher education institutions, promoting innovation and encouraging the development of innovation-related activities.
Area of focus: Talent attraction and retention
PODs: COLLEGIUM, DOCTUS & TENURE
Action plan item: TALENT & TRAINING DESIGN
There are two training pathways designed. COLLEGIUM is a training opportunity designed to raise excellence and value creation via a dedicated knowledge sharing and best practices programme targeting researchers across the Alliance. DOCTUS is a doctoral program structured as a yearly seminar series. A MOOC on Artistic Research Competences serves as an introduction to the DOCTUS training seminars (see design in FilmEU_RIT D4.1). The DOCTUS seminars draw from the ongoing artistic research endeavours within FilmEU. Pioneering practitioners in artistic research can impart their insights and knowledge to incoming PhD candidates in this innovative research domain. These seminars offer comprehensive training at a doctoral level over multiple days. Moreover, The Research Seminars’ major goal is to create an open venue for PhD students to share their work, receive feedback, collaborate on new ideas, and learn from their more senior colleagues. DOCTUS gatherings are seen as an exploratory room where they can test out ideas and present incomplete work in progress. The goal is to provide training and assist the researcher who is presenting his or her work in developing the project, finding collaborators, and developing new ideas (see FilmEU_RIT D6.5). The focus on Talent also included the critical POD TENURE that involved mapping relations and career pathways across the Alliance in view of setting up an original Tenure model fit for purpose for the objective of the Alliance of attracting and retaining talent.
Area of focus: Joint Structures and Services
PODs: Office, FilmEU Hub, Community
Action plan item: PILOT STRUCTURES & SERVICES
The joint structures and services are concentrated in RIT Office (see supra) which supports the operation of the umbrella FilmEU Hub (see supra) allowing for a sharing of resources by using the different labs at the four HEIs. The RIT Office main digital tool is the research community building platform FilmEU commUNITY (see infra), a professional online network which can be used by FilmEU staff, researchers and students to connect on collaborative pilot projects, strengthen professional relationships, and be informed about research competencies training opportunities.
Outcomes
Innovation is at the centre of the FilmEU Alliance and the Innovation Toolkit is designed as a complement to FilmEU Innovation plan. The toolkit was envisioned as a card game to support strategic envisioning across HEIs in view of fostering the emergence of innovation related activities among our teachers, researchers, and staff. The toolkit was designed as a series of exercises in a workshop model with a focus group approach and a minimum of five participants and one moderator taking the participants through a series of exercises that each covers the several dimensions inside each of the layers of innovation we identified in our Innovation plan.
SPARC is the Strategic Plan for Advancing Research Capacity for FilmEU. SPARC is a visual guideline to support researchers in collaborating to advance (the impact of) artistic research. It consists of a strategic timeline as a pathway to bolster up an artistic researcher at any level of their research career to get involved, receive training and get supported and motivated to collaborate on research pilots driven towards consolidating artistic research.
The FilmEU Artistic Research Exhibition is an outreach format allowing for early career artistic researchers to showcase their work and receive feedback from invited experienced artistic researchers. ARE is accompanied by a moderated artistic research panel during a FilmEU Summit to provide context and debate concerning the current status of artistic research. ARE is annually curated by senior artistic researchers and organized around a theme.
A dynamic cluster is a model for effective research and innovation in practice-oriented higher education institutions. A cluster is a fluid network of (junior, early career, senior and citizen) researchers organized around bottom-up defined topics rather than rigid hierarchies. These clusters foster interinstitutional and interdisciplinary collaboration. The model integrates diverse researchers, infrastructures and resources across institutions based on shared interests, advancing artistic research at different levels of expertise. It does not formalize permanent or institutionalised research groups but emphasizes peer learning and improving research quality by accessing expertise beyond local boundaries. The clusters are activated in pilot projects with various research frameworks and collaborative partners within and outside of FilmEU. The intention of the pilot venture is to explore the various forms of artistic research collaborations, progresses and outputs.
The RIT Office has a mandate to inform, encourage and support FilmEU researchers in conducting their artistic research and securing research funding. The RIT Office will have a focus on pre-award services and pooling expertise on post-award services, responsible research principles and dissemination & communication channels. It supports research policy, PhD policy, postdoctoral policy, and provides expertise on research data management, dissemination channels, and Open Access. The RIT Office is the common voice within the FilmEU Alliance on artistic research and artistic research integrity so that it can act as policy advisor on research, innovation and the creative industries. The RIT Office intended to function as an ‘actor of change’ accelerates institutional transformation, valorises collaborative and interdisciplinary working, and ambitions high standards of scientific excellence. The RIT Office has been set in motion by sharing tasks and assigning time to research officers and coordinators within FilmEU.
The FilmEU commUNITY is designed as a web-based collaborative platform dedicated to the implementation of the FilmEU joint research agenda and targeted at researchers, teachers, staff and graduate students. The platform is designed to follow our capacitation efforts, namely the mapping of existing resources to highlight expertise and identify potential areas of collaboration between members. It is designed to foster collaboration among the FilmEU community by enabling the creation of collaboration opportunities and groups. The platform will be user-generated: in addition to the highlighted FilmEU Alliance calls for collaboration, FilmEU researchers, staff and teachers will be able to initiate opportunities for various purposes such as brainstorming or writing sessions. The FilmEU commUNITY is designed to target specific groups to boost news, events or opportunities.
OPEN FilmEU provides open access to the media arts projects and FilmEU films created within the FilmEU Alliance.