Research  Project

We are all experiencing a time of crisis and change during the Covid-19 pandemic. The immediate matters are health and safety, however, there are other long-term concerns that need to be addressed. In this project we try and explore the impact of Covid-19 on Creative Higher Education and more specifically on creative subject degrees taught at higher education level in the UK and Internationally. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic most higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK and abroad have moved their teaching and work online and academics are now providing teaching support from home. However, while this is feasible for subjects where teaching tends to be lecture-base, the impact might be different for degrees where physical and material practice, equipment and spaces play a very important role in learning development and the acquisition of skills. With this project we would like to address the following questions:
  • What has been the impact of Covid-19 on your teaching practices?
  • What are the limitations / differences of online work in relation specifically to creative subjects?
  • What aspects of your teaching are not possible in the current social isolation/ home-learning context?
  • What new modes of engagement and opportunities have this crisis promoted?
This website and research project aims to involve academics and technical staff at HE level in creative disciplines (at all level from temporary lecturers to professors and Head of Departments). We will try to get a representation of different careers stages, gender, and disciplines when possible. We might also collect some limited data from a number of students of those degrees to hear about the issues and challenges we are facing.

Methodology & Ethics Guidelines

The methodology will involve three levels of data collection and engagement.
1) Mapping knowledge and discussion on the impact of Covid-19 on creative HE. We will use the website and blog to engage with the broader academic community and map the content and reflection in the HE media around connected themes. 
If you would like to be involve by writing a short piece for our blog please email: creativeHEcovid@gmail.com 
If you would like to keep informed about the general debate, or share relevant information please join our mailing list (via Jiscmail)
2) Interactive platform. We will activate a platform for interaction of registered participants to provide a safe space for exchange of knowledge and practice. Participants need to be current academic or technical staff at Higher Education institutions, involved in creative subjects* teaching.  This will be opened only to invited participants (to guarantee the quality of the discussion).  If you are interested in being involved, please complete our Get Involved online form and we will send more details about participation.
3) Interviews & Focus groups. Participants to interactive platform will be invited - if they wish to - to respond to short surveys, online focus groups or online individual interview in relation to their expertise and experience. 

We hope to share the findings of our discussion in a report towards the end of 2020. We are also interested in thinking with participants about the proposal for a special issue on the impact of Covid-19 on creative HE. 

Ethics

If you plan to be involved in the project, please download our Ethics guidelines documents here below:
Download the project Information Sheet:
information-sheet-creativehecovid19.pdf
File Size: 128 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File
The project has been registered within King's College London  Research Ethics Minimal Risk category  Minimal Risk Registration Number: MRA-19/20-18437  

Research Team

Dr Roberta Comunian, Dr Tamsyn Dent and Dr Lauren England are based at the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, at King's College London

Project Advisory Committee

Prof. Vicky Gunn 
Glasgow School of Arts & committee member of CHEAD
​Matthew Guest 
Policy Manager | Research, Knowledge Exchange & Industrial Strategy at GuildHE
Prof. Linda Drew
Chair Social Enterprise Mark CIC
Creative Education Champion
Jon Wardle
Director, National Film and Television School (NFTS)
Saad Qureshi
Dean for Europe at Navitas UK Holdings Ltd & Board Member Advance HE 
GiannaLia Cogliandro​ 
Secretary General of ENCATC
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