8.1.1Research between the Art School and academia

The Bologna Process formally introduced artistic research to many European higher education systems. But although that process was committed to harmonization and transnational mobility, its implementation varied across Europe, so that the system for pursuing the arts PhD differs from place to place. Flanders did not push for the full integration or assimilation of higher arts education into the university system, nor did it effectuate the creation of a separate space wherein artistic research would develop as an autonomous circuit. Instead, the organization of institutionalized forms of artistic research in Flanders involves the association (associatie) between the Schools of Arts—as the former academies of higher arts education, which now constitute the semi-autonomous departments of university colleges (Hogescholen), came to be called—and the universities they are associated with (see Figure 1).^[1]

The special position granted to the Schools of Art in what came to be known as the academization process (academiseringsproces)—which took place between 2004 and 2013, and distinguished ‘professional’ (i.e., practice-oriented) from ‘academic’ (i.e., research-oriented) programs—is highlighted by their status as the only institutions, other than universities, to offer MA degrees. Today, these institutions function as the primary sanctioned space for research in the arts. However, due to the full integration of design disciplines (e.g. graphic and fashion) and architecture into university faculties, as well as to the existence of specialist postgraduate institutions devoted to training in particular artistic disciplines, artistic research in Flanders also takes places outside the Schools of Arts.^[2]

^[1] This is not the case with the LUCA School of Arts, which constitutes a standalone university college (Hogeschool) in the Associatie KULeuven (see Figure 1).

^[2] Notable among these postgraduate institutions are: the Orpheus Institute for music, founded in Ghent in 1996; the dance school P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studio), founded by choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker in Brussels in 1995; and the visual arts school HISK (Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten, or Higher Institute for Fine Arts), founded in Ghent in 1997.

Although the Schools of Arts have been awarding MA degrees since 2002, the granting of doctoral titles remains under the exclusive purview of the university. Candidates for the PhD in the arts are selected by and enroll in a School of Art, and one or more member(s) of the teaching staff there act as the candidate’s artistic supervisor(s). But the candidates must also choose an academic supervisor, usually from the faculty of the associated university. With artistic and academic input structurally embedded in the PhD candidate’s formal training, research in the arts happens on the threshold between the art school and academia, and is evaluated both by artistic and academic assessors. Unsurprisingly, this situation can and sometimes does lead to friction, mostly about the expected realizations of PhD trajectories and their final outcome, which differs across associations. While all Flemish universities formally require a dissertation to be submitted in partial fulfilment of the doctoral degree in the arts, the form assumed by that dissertation can vary widely. Some allow doctoral candidates to submit artistic realizations—an exhibition, musical scores, artworks, plays and so forth—as the primary outcome of their PhD research, and give less priority to scholarly theses, thus requiring academic assessors to adopt alternative conceptions of excellence. Others require written dissertations as a discursive supplement to artistic outcomes, demanding artistic researchers to balance their art-based practices (which can include writing) with traditional scholarly reporting.

Artistic research happens outside of PhD trajectories too (e.g. postdoctoral fellowships), but doctoral projects form the bulk of formal arts-based research in Flanders. The prominence of doctoral work reflects not only artistic research’s relatively recent introduction to the university sector, but also a certain pragmatism on the part of the Schools of Arts: funding PhD projects makes it possible to balance research ambitions with financial limitations. In comparison, postdoctoral and professorial research demands more resources from already strained budgets—a consideration that is further exacerbated by the inclusion of delivered doctoral degrees as a parameter in the allocation of research funding for the Schools of Arts.