Creative Practice Research Academy (CPRA)
The Creative Practice Research Academy (CPRA) is home to a diverse and engaged community of scholars who undertake creative practice research, theoretical and contextual research into creative practices.
Overview
CPRA brings together researchers working in a variety of creative practices and at all career stages, and includes research students, senior academics, as well as those just embarking on research. Our fundamental ethos is to provide a supportive, collaborative, encouraging, yet critical culture of working together. As creative practice researchers and those engaged with creative praxes, we recognise the importance of everyone who contributes to the field, opening up new conversations and furthering existing debates.
We are an externally-facing academy and welcome collaboration and critical engagement with organizations, practitioners, and communities outside the university.
Our projects are both impactful and significant, and at the cutting edge of a dynamic range of discipline areas where some can be found below:
- In Certain Places
- Media Innovation Studio
- Artlab Printmaking Studio
- Silicate Research Unit
- StoryLab – Skills Training for Democratised Film Industries
- Café Royal Books
Much of our research is multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary by nature, and some exemplars can be found below:
- Arts and Wellbeing Research Group
- Visual Studies Research Group
- Dance and Somatic Practice Research Group
- Media Innovation Research Group
- Music Research Group
- Place and Communities Research Group
Our aims and objectives are to:
- provide a home and support for research staff, their projects, and research students across the arts, media, and creative practices
- advocate and enable creative practices and critical engagement
- provide an infrastructure that supports transdisciplinary approaches to projects
- celebrate the breadth and depth of creative practice research undertaken in the faculty, and beyond
- make visible and accessible the impacts of creative research projects from the regional to the global
- encourage the development of our research bidding culture and a peer review procedure for external funding bids
- develop and support the postgraduate research student experience
We will do this by:
- managing a postgraduate research student training programme, open and invited research events, and an ambitious guest speaker programme
- providing a branded context, advocacy and policy support for research centres, groups, and projects
- shaping and disseminating the creative practice research narrative, research profile, and research culture, including through innovative social media engagement
- designing and managing a creative practice research mentoring scheme
Academic expertise
For more information, or to enquire about research degrees in this area, please contact:
Related articles
Dr Ursula Pool and Dr John Scanlan have been working with a consortium of local partners, in West Cumbria, to develop an Arts Council England bid - ‘Creative People and Places’.
Wednesday 26 January 2022
ICP, an art-led research project, has involved a programme of temporary public artworks which have increased cultural engagement and informed policy within the city of Preston.
Friday 17 September 2021
Music fans are set for a taste of live music with a difference at the Harris Museum & Gallery thanks to a ground-breaking performance created by UCLan academics
Friday 12 March 2021
This research seeks to explore and address the lack of visibility of the work of Black women visual artists in museum collections and temporary displays of contemporary art in Britain.
Wednesday 8 September 2021