Supervision
Supervision happens in teams, often drawing together art, design and media researchers with specialists in relevant other fields including architecture, communications, humanities, education and healthcare.
Training happens in overlapping contexts, including specialist practice-based training, interdisciplinary training with humanities, communications and media students, and generic university level training. Once a year we hold an interdisciplinary PhD conference where students explore two major alternating themes: an exploration of research processes, and a critical reflection on research impact, or value.
Our students tend to be highly active in their disciplinary communities, organising exhibitions and conferences, publishing, and working with other research students in other institutions.
Partners
Much of our students' work faces outwards in local and national partnerships, and involves developing knowledge that passes through the university walls. Our partners include S1 Artspace, Site Gallery, William Morris Gallery London, and the V&A and English Heritage through AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards. Hallam art and design PhD students also studied within the AHRC Heritage Consortium.
Projects
Recent projects led by our PhD students include a student-led exhibition exploring the complexity of presenting ‘research’, a publication on ‘double-agency’ where students explore professional-researcher dual identities, and a conference on Visibility. Staff-led PhD projects include an exhibition examining the academic poster, and oHPo, a radio station for art school, devised to draw people together and create spaces of dissemination in a pandemic context.
Building the space for practice-based research: documentation of collaborative and student-led projects
A PhD student's view
For an insight into being a PhD student with us, read Sarah 'Smizz' Smith's blog post about their PhD experience.