Models of Research/Creation: Click for PowerPoint Slides
Yesterday I presented at OCAD on Research/Creation: State of the Art. I was surprised at the anger in the audience with this SSHRC program. Some were there to learn about it, but some where there to question the program and how it has been run. We didn’t have a full airing of the grievances, but I think some of them are:
- The Canada Council is sending university artists to SSHRC and SSHRC is saying we only fund research/creation (not art)
- The adjudication panel was not made up of practicing artists
- It isn’t clear how research can be woven into creative practices
- There is an emphasis on teams and training of graduate students which disadvantages artists whose practices are solitary
How to respond? One side of me was surprised at the sense of entitlement behind some of the questions, as if SSHRC should be funding art. On the other hand, if people are telling university artists to use this program and not to apply for Canada Council grants, then we have a problem. Perhaps it is fair to say that SSHRC tapped into a need which they couldn’t meet with just one program and without the Canada Council. What they are doing is great, but we need a greater variety of programs and more funding. (Then again, who doesn’t feel they need more programs and more funding?)
My sense (and I am not a SSHRC representative) of some answers:
- The SSHRC R/C program is not an art grants program so people should not expect it to function as one. Unless you are prepared to propose a research/creation project you probably won’t get funded. It would be inappropriate for the Social Science and Humanities Research Council to fund the arts at the expense of their constituency. Rather, they should consult with the Canada Council to develop interdisciplinary programs that extend the range of funding opportunities available and that is what the R/C program is.
That said, there are imaginative ways to weave research into creative practices in order to have a convincing proposal.
- The adjudication panel was made up of scholar creators. Its limitation was that one committee had to cover so many different areas and be bilingual.
- The R/C program is a pilot that, to some extent, is developing a new hybrid form of practice that does not have a long tradition. The program itself and the imaginative proposals coming from the community are developing the models. Thus there is no easy answer as to how the two are combined. What works for dramaturgy won’t work for photography. Proposals that imagine innovative and appropriate ways to integrating research and creation will probably do better than crude hacks designed to get money for essentially traditional practices. There are people experimenting at this intersection, it was partly to support them (not artists working soley in a traditional fashion or scholars for that matter) that the program was designed. The program should resist the temptation to offer a simple answer to the question in order to encourage creative (and unanticipated) proposals.
At a deeper level there is the question of whether SSHRC (or any research council) should be piloting new forms of practice. What is the alternative? Only fund things that have been done for 20 years as they have been done for 20 years?
Research councils have a mandate to lead not just follow and they inherit that from the federal government which has its priorities. We see this, unfortunately, in the emphasis on science, technology and health funding, which is coming from the government. SSHRC in its transformation is trying to creatively adapt to government priorties in a way that better promotes the need for SSH research and therefore funding. As government priorities change and as the community of researchers changes all research councils have to adapt. The hard thing is to adapt appropriately and to balance the needs of the breadth of stakeholders. The transformation consultation brought out this tension within the SSH community – the tension between researchers who wanted funding for new directions and those who wanted it for the good-old-ways.
It is also true that the creation of new programs changes practices in the academy by providing new types of support that encourage people to shift to fit. It has always been so – administrative structures do just that – they influence those that wish to work within and the tenure process is the worst. The question is not whether SSHRC should do it, as they have no choice but to structure things in some fashion, but whether they are doing it right and changing in a graceful fashion? Is there a real demand for research/creation? Is this the best use of the limited funding they get? How is it influencing research and creative practices? That’s what I hope SSHRC will ask when the pilot is over.
- The emphasis on support for training of new researchers is part of SSHRC’s mandate to support the full ecology of researchers and to support the ongoing health of research. It would be inappropriate to fund only mature researchers and ignore the needs of graduate students. Further, they are trying to encourage apprenticeship where senior faculty involve junior faculty and graduate students so that training is woven into practice not separated from it. We have much to learn from the disciplines with higher completion rates about healthy training that prepares graduate students for the challenges of research and creation.
Team research is a more complex issue – you don’t have to have a team, but it is easier to show that you have both the research and creation experience needed if you have a team involving artists and others. It is harder (but not impossible) for one faculty member to demonstrate competence in the breadth of practices needed to complete some projects. Thus the program does encourage artists to bring on board researchers who complement their skills, and to experiment with different ways of doing research/creation in community.
For me it is the challenge of the project that should drive the design of the team. You can try to come up with a research/creation challenge that you are suited for or you can start with the challenge that interests you. Once you have the challenge the question is what expertise is needed to meet the challenge in the time (3 years) allotted. If I’m not the best person, or if there are others who can help me meet a challenge, I would prefer to involve them than to hack the proposal so it looks like something only I could do. Through the process I might acquire the knowledge needed to not need a collaborator the next time.
Edited for typos on June 2, 2006.