Royal Holloway University of London and Barbican Guildhall Creative Learning are pleased to announce a funded doctoral studentship under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Award Scheme. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work collaboratively with academics from the Department of Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway University of London and staff in Creative Learning.

The Barbican: Creative Learning, Participation and Artistic Innovation will be supervised by Professor Helen Nicholson and Sean Gregory, Director of Creative Learning at Barbican/ Guildhall. The focus of the study will be Shift, the Barbican's contribution to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation's Special Initiative, ArtWorks: Developing Practice in Participatory Settings. This five year programme supports the professional development of artists who apply their practice to social, educational and community engagement. Shift recognizes that twenty-first century artists have embraced innovative forms of cultural practice in new settings; companies are developing 'local' programmes that interrogate the interactivity of place and audience, and that practice outside conventional performance spaces is designed to engage diverse publics in new forms of participation and spectatorship. New, energetic methodologies are intended to reach wide audiences and bring communities together. Without a clear understanding of the values, cultures and concepts of participation, however, there is a risk that such projects simply temporarily relocate existing metropolitan tastes and audiences to areas of social deprivation. This studentship offers an excellent opportunity to make a difference to this ground-breaking programme, to ask new research questions about this aspect of contemporary arts practice, to engage with artists and participants, and to investigate the work of policy-makers as part of the Barbican/ Guildhall research team.

Closing Date for application: 17^th July, 2012

Further information can be found under ‘CDA awards’ at: blocked::http://www.rhul.ac.uk/studyhere/researchdegrees/feesandfunding/scholarships/ahrc.aspx"">http://www.rhul.ac.uk/studyhere/researchdegrees/feesandfunding/scholarships/ahrc.aspx or at http://www.barbican.org.uk/about-barbican/careers/current-vacancies...

Informal enquiries may be made to Sophie Leighton-Kelly, Research and Evaluation Coordinator: sophie.leighton-kelly@barbican.org.uk or Professor Helen Nicholson: h.nicholson@rhul.ac.uk