Months before last year’s race riots in England and the international fallout of September 11, Britain’s Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) decided one of the first themes for its initiatives should be ”understanding and enriching multiculturalism”. Suddenly arts and humanities research, which politicians saw as marginal — a matter of some lone scholars sitting in libraries — is looking very relevant.
Professor David Easton, CEO of the board, admits that arts and humanities research has ”traditionally not been very good at making the transition from creativity into productivity”. He and his colleagues have been working towards research programmes that not only link to current cultural agendas, but forge closer relationships with the creative industries and have potential for being disseminated into the public domain.
Arts and humanities are increasingly economically viable — and attractive. Last year the Department of Culture, Media and Sport estimated that the creative industries in the United Kingdom were worth £112,5-billion.
”If you broke down the cultural industries and you looked at their component parts, then a good deal of what we are funding in the area of creative performance feeds directly into that economy. The rest feeds into the fantastic reputation the UK has internationally, which undoubtedly in turn feeds into cultural tourism,” says Eastwood.
”In a country that has no natural resources left, human capital and knowledge becomes crucial to the wealth of a country.”
The board’s submission to the government’s comprehensive spending review called for more money to instigate collaborative studentships in the creative and performing arts, on a parallel with those in science and engineering. And society’s attitude towards the kind of research the board is funding is changing, says Eastwood. ”If you look at the appetite for historical and archaeological TV programmes, programmes which reflect our cultural priorities and cultural context, it is basically about the kind of research that we are funding.”
There are currently a number of independent television producers interested in AHRB-funded research, and their researchers are regularly featured in the media. But the influence goes beyond that. Last year’s Spectacular Bodies exhibition, about the history of the art and science of the human body, at the prestigious Hayward Gallery in London, was curated by one of its award holders.
Such research is typical of the kind the board is keen to fund. Eastwood describes the perfect application as ”something that is intellectually exciting, academically important, and has a well-considered strategy for disseminating the results of the research.” But the research grants are heavily oversubscribed, in all areas bar modern languages. ”The numbers going into postgraduate research in modern languages is falling,” says Eastwood, ”which is a concern, partly because the UK needs those language skills and partly because it’s important to our own cultural understanding that we have a rich and sympathetic understanding of other cultures.”
Competition for the limited grants available means the board struggles to achieve 20% success rates for applicants. Its annual budget is just £70-million. This compares with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s total budget of £441-million, and success rates of 45% in 2000. The arts board does not have equal status to the research councils, a situation Eastwood and his predecessor, Paul Langford, worked hard to rectify and that is currently under government review.
Research council status would not only bring more money, but more potential for interdisciplinary research and more influence on research policy, argues Eastwood. But in the meantime, the structures are being put in place to maximise the potential of the arts board. Collaborative initiatives include the industry-focused Designing for the 21st-Century, with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, as well as their first Europe-wide initiative.
The outcome of the review could be the highlight of Eastwood’s work before he leaves in September to become vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia. At 42, he will be the youngest university vice-chancellor and one of only four humanities-based vice-chancellors in the pre-1992 universities.
So what would research council status mean? ”It would mean that arts and humanities had a seat at the table, so that when research policy was being discussed we would be there speaking for those interests instead of being shut out,” he says.
And if the review recommends maintaining the status quo? ”It would leave us anonymous, in a position where arts and humanities research looked as if it was second-class and where arts and humanities researchers were treated as second-class citizens.” —