Working the Space: Augmenting Training for Practice-based Research

The worlds of practice and academic research produce powerful cultural identities: for this reason practice-based researchers must work had to produce a space for themselves within these differing forces. The need to 'work the space' in this way is a creative and constructive part of practice-research but is often not recognised or catered for in university doctoral training. In this chapter I explore some of the national requirements for doctoral training in the UK. These indicate that cohort development is desirable for all PhD candidates, but the delivery of doctoral training in UK Universities sometimes offers a version that excludes practice-based researchers. Drawing on work with art and design PhD candidates in a post-92 UK University, I offer alternative ways to offer group research training which builds researcher's understanding and construction of their intellectual and cultural space without eschewing engagement with more generic notions of research training. These approaches draw on historic cultures of organising in art and design, employ critical and creative practices and challenge how we might see training, skills and being a researcher. From this I suggest a manifesto for how practice-based research training can happen that might also be applied beyond art and design.