In contrast to technical universities, art universities are still in their beginnings in encouraging exchange and knowledge transfer with sciences and humanities. Until the 19th century, a close exchange between art and science was indispensable. During the project, we particularly worked on the role of art functioning not only as aesthetic object but as independent way of knowledge production. Since the 1980s, the topic of AR has been discussed primarily in English-speaking countries spreading over the years. Through AR, artistic practise can be understood as an agent of societal discourse in multiple fields. It can be an interconnector between urgent societal and academic needs and discourses, linking institutions and protagonists from diverse fields and creating new interaction. It can contribute strongly to the Third Mission, e.g. through Citizen Science and Lifelong Learning, but also through inclusiveness. All these points feed back into our institutions’ academic cultures and support transformation in contemporary Higher Education.
The project team achieved the objectives through a double-pillar structure: developing new Fine Arts teaching structures and strengthening knowledge transfer to society, academia, and economy. The following activities can also be seen as a contribution to the concepts and aims of ERA. The project’s objectives were achieved through a series of actions and processes:
- Raising our partner institutions’ research profiles and boosting opportunities for AR collaboration of the partnering institutions by fostering academic excellence and transnational collaboration. Conclusion: Through organising conferences, events and network activities, as well as participation in a FOREU1 subgroup, the partner institutions became strong new protagonists in the field of AR, invited to present at international conferences and to become partners in future international projects.
- Promoting a culture of research for postgraduate students and early-career researchers. Conclusions: The project developed new opportunities for postgraduate students and artistic researchers by building ne AR units and graduate schools across all partner institutions. These should feed into a new community which would have led to a joint decentralised graduate school in a follow-up phase of the project. All the activities named were supported by lectures, webinars and trainings addressing students, postgraduates and academic staff.
- Leverage academic excellence and strengthen the cooperation of departments of all alliance partners, as well as synergies between the cooperation partners. We thus strengthened in-depth cooperation across all academies through actions consisting of raised visibility and dissemination of Artistic Research practices and outcomes within the faculties of each partner and implementing transdisciplinary cooperation possibilities.
- Creating twinning groups fostering collaboration through the new AR units. We achieved this using the Research Catalogue (RC), a specialised digital ecosystem. We developed a peer group format for qualified feedback. Furthermore, we cooperated with already existing graduate schools of the local partner universities and started a collaborative research project.
- Executing outreach both to society and academia through establishing AR as a format of knowledge production. Thus, we fostered and developed transfer mechanisms that advance and advocate for AR as a field of its own, enhancing established efforts in European HE. We achieved this by collaborating with other European University Alliances to advance our own R&I agenda, advocating for policy change through participation in the FOREU1 subgroup on R&I.
- Cooperating with relevant stakeholders in the field of AR. Thus, we became partners of the SAR, created a project portal at the RC, became actively involved with ELIA, and cooperated with the quality assessment agency EQ-Arts and FilmEU at different levels.
EU4ART_differences respected the principles of subsidiarity, institutional autonomy, and academic freedom of all partner institutions, promoting diversity in European Higher Education in the arts.
