I dare you?
iDARE involves a team of designers and visual and performing artists and theorists from across Australia who have asked the question: How do we prepare artists for real world practice where there are no ethics committees to guide them and where and they are responsible for developing their own ethical framework in their work? In late 2015, this team won OLT funding for a University of Melbourne led project Developing new approaches to ethics and research integrity training through challenges posed by Creative Practice Research [ID15-4776].
A little context: Higher degree research (HDR) in creative practice (including creative and performing arts, and design) is a relatively new research field in the academy. The creative practice PhD has only existed since the 1990s when creative arts training became part of a unified higher education system as a result of the Dawkins reforms. As researchers, creative arts research practitioners enrolled in the creative practice PhDs have become subject to the university’s research ethics processes and procedures if their work involves human and animal subjects, while in “real world” practice this is not the case (Bolt et al, 2010: 6). The iDARE team are concerned with the question of developing “ethical know-how”: how ethical practices are enacted in creative arts research and beyond its disciplinary boundaries. Our aim is to support research and reposition “ethics” as being at the forefront and centre of innovative creative research practice rather than a problem to be avoided.
As part of the project, we held a national iDARE conference in September 2016, where around 100 creative practitioners, candidates, academics and ethics administrators and managers descended on Melbourne to discuss and debate the intersections of creative practice research and ethical “know-how”.
Over the two days of the conference:
- 41 presenters/activity facilitators
- 14 paper presentations http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/dare-conferences-and-events/2016-idare-abstracts/all-2016-idare-abstracts/
- 4 activity based interactions http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/workshops/dare-rmit-workshop-2016/about-crew/
- 4 keynotes http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/dare-conference-2016/2016-idare-conference-keynotes/
The response to the conference was so enthusiastic that we put out a call for papers and have had over fifteen essays that address issues such as developing ethical know how, relationality and ethics, institutional ethics and creative practice research, ethics in practice and etho-aesthetics. Watch this space for the publication!When aesthetics meets ethics in artistic research and art based research
Ethics is at the forefront and centre of innovative creative research practice but how do we equip our graduate students with the ethical knowhow to make ethical decisions in their practices as creative arts practitioners? How do we shift perceptions and practice around ethics, beyond institutional ethics and risk management? How can we encourage institutions to take on the notion of “a situated ethics” that will help prepare our graduates to become ethical and innovative practitioners in the “real world”?
Over the last 18 months the research team (http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/about-idare/about-the-project/researchers-and-partner-institutions/) has been working on this through the conference, a series of workshops, interviews and surveys and the development of the website iDARE (http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/). Over the life of the project, we will publish on the iDARE website some of the deliverables for the project. These deliverables include:
- a mapping of current university practices through audit and case studies
- professional development for candidates, supervisors and ethics administrators is being developed and trialled through workshops with evaluation.
- University of Melbourne (February 2017) as a part of VCA_MCM Staff planning day
- RMIT (March 2017)
- Edith Cowan University (April 2017)
- Federation University Australia (April 2017)
- London workshop (June 2017) Bartlett School (UCL) and Slade School of Fine Art (UCL)
- UNSW (September, 2017)
- University of Wollongong (September, 2017)
- a pedagogical toolkit (in progress) http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/
- case studies from current and recently graduated HDR candidates, academic supervisors and ethics specialists discussing creative practice projects, issues and concerns (http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/dare-case-studies/about-the-case-studies/ . This collection of case studies is being progressively added to over the next few months, please subscribe to the website for a weekly post update.
- pedagogical models for learning and teaching activities for self-directed and guided study;
- policy guidance;
- ethics resources for practices and processes http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/toolkit-resources/
- University of Melbourne ethics library guide for visual arts The University of Melbourne Lib Guide is a Library resource that can be customised to your resources by any university library using the SpringShare platform. We are keen for this to be shared across the academy and so ask you to share with your librarian. http://unimelb.libguides.com/c.php?g=402830&p=3063140
- establishing a community of practice through engagement in the conference, workshops and the CREW http://www.aelab.org/the-crew The Creative Research Ethics Workshop (CREW) is an ethics-in-action collaboration involving creative practice researchers from multiple universities. Through a call for Expressions of Interest the group formed to explore relationships between ethics and creative practice research. Starting in August 2016 with a two-day intensive workshop, the group continued and expanded through a month of weekly gatherings inside the Occupied exhibition at RMIT’s Design Hub, leading to a series of contributions to the iDARE conference, including an exhibition, workshop/performative events and a conference bag/kit. The CREW is still in progress and working towards some more exciting ethics-in-action collaboration activities.
We would love to hear about your experiences in ethics and advising creative practices researchers, if you would like to contribute we invite you to fill in our ethics administrator/manager survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ethics_admin_survey
The final report will be published on the iDARE website after lodging and the funding body’s approval and publishing. We expect this report to be published by mid 2018.
Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views in this project do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.
Contributor
Megan McPherson
Project Manager | Developing new approaches to ethics and research integrity training through challenges posed by creative practice research
Professor Barbara Bolt | Associate Dean of Research
Bios – http://idare.vca.unimelb.edu.au/about-idare/about-the-project/researchers-and-partner-institutions/
Enquiries – mcpherson.m@unimelb.edu.au
This post may be cited as:
McPherson M and Bolt B . (2017, 22 May) iDARE: [innovation.design.arts.research.ethics]. Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/idare-innovation-design-arts-research-ethics