Research and Development in Art, Design and Creativity
It is a requirement of many higher education institutions and research organisations throughout the world that they develop corporate strategies in order to specify organisational objectives and the timescales for their delivery. These normally include statements about mission, vision and values. Such strategies also have to satisfy national and statutory requirements where national functions, standards, and funding are involved. These corporate strategies will include research strategies for those areas of the institution engaged in research. Thus many organisations and institutions formulate research and development strategies for their Institutes or Schools of Art and Design in order to synchronise with the overarching strategies of the organisations to which they belong. These Institutes or Schools may be supported by research groups within the area of art and design that seek to capitalise on the academic strengths of their constituent members and their individual and collective research achievements and aspirations. This may also involve external partnerships in areas where joint work is taking place, whether with another School in the institution, an external sponsor, an artistic agency, a funding body, or an external research group. Most projects funded by the European Union require the participation of different research groups from different countries, where complementarity of research specialisms is required in order to enable the project to deliver to the wider canvas defined by the proposal. Such collaborations enable larger research projects to be undertaken and a more detailed set of objectives to be realised. These have the potential to make a greater impact in terms of research deliverables, and the consequent benefits that can be brought to wider society. Funding for research is increasingly competitive both nationally and internationally, so there is increasing emphasis on research quality. Thus individuals, research groups, and institutions, often seek to optimise their research strategies and research strengths in order to have maximum effect on their opportunities to support quality research, attract research grants, deliver research results, and attract other good researchers, whether academic staff or postgraduate students. The days of the individual researcher working in isolation are decreasing, unless this is done on a private basis, simply because the framework within which academic research is done has a greater degree of organisation, formalisation, accountability, and compliance due to the need to make the best use of limited resources. This framework typically seeks to synchronise its objectives with those of the funding agencies to maximise (c) The Author(s) 2016 R. Earnshaw, Research and Development in Art, Design and Creativity, SpringerBriefs in Computer Science, DOI 10.1007/978 3 319 33005 1_1 1 2 1 Strategies for Research and Development in Art and Design the chances of successful bids. In addition, those individuals who are involved in creative works such as painting or sculpture with associated exhibitions can often be incorporated into appropriate research groups, and may often obtain external sponsorship to support their work.
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