Practice research aka practice as research, practice based research or/and practitioner researcher is a form of academic

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

which incorporates practice in the

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

or research output. Rather than seeing the relationship between practice and theory as a dichotomy, as has sometimes traditionally been the case (see

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

: theory and practice heading), there is a growing body of practice research academics across a number of disciplines who use practice as part of their research. For example, the

practice-based research network A practice-based research network (PBRN) is a group of practices devoted principally to the care of patients and affiliated for the purpose of examining the health care processes that occur in practices. PBRNs are characterized by an organizational ...

(PBRN) within clinical

medical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as experimental medicine, encompasses a wide array of research, extending from "basic research" (also called ''bench science'' or ''bench research''), – involving fundamental scientif ...

Practice-led research in the arts and design

Within

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...

and

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

departments there are ongoing debates about how to define this emerging research phenomenon, and there are a variety of models of practice research (practice-as-research, practice-based, practice-led, mixed-mode research practice and practice through research), see for example

screen media practice research Screen or Screens may refer to: Arts * Screen printing (also called ''silkscreening''), a method of printing * Big screen, a nickname associated with the motion picture industry * Split screen (filmmaking), a film composition paradigm in which mu ...

. The potential, nature and scope for this research has been debated from the 1990s. Sir Christopher Frayling in 1993 adapted Herbert Read's model of education through art to describe different ways of thinking about research, noting that research could be ''for'' practice, where research aims are subservient to practice aims, ''through'' practice, where the practice serves a research purpose, or ''into'' practice, such as observing the working processes of others. Bruce Archer's statement in 1995 shows the growing recognition of arts practice as research at this time, "There are circumstances where the best or only way to shed light on a proposition, a principle, a material, a process or a function is to attempt to construct something, or to enact something, calculated to explore, embody or test it." This led to the acceptance of practice research in these disciplines to be reviewed alongside traditional research disciplines in the sphere of

Higher Education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...

a debate supported by the work of Michael Biggs, John Freeman, Kristina Niedderer, Katy Macleod, Darren Newbury and others. The UK's

Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. History The Arts an ...

had a steering committee devoted to practice-led research and its report was completed in September 2007, titled AHRC Research Review in Practice-Led Research in Art, Design and Architecture. This informed continuing discussions by the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design (CHEAD) and the AHRC resulting in an evolved notion of practice as research in art, design and architecture, media, and creative writing. This in turn brought an increasing recognition in the UK of the ways in which creative departments contribute to research culture, a potential which informs elements of the Research Excellence Framework 2014.

References

External links

* Freeman, John, 'Blood, Sweat & Theory: Research through Practice in Performance'. Libri: Oxford * Schroeder, Franziska (2015). 'Bringing practice closer to research - seeking integrity, sincerity and authenticity'. In: ''International Journal of Education through Art. Practice-based Research in Art and Design. ''Guest Editors: Stuart MacDonald and Julian Malins
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