8.1.2Organizing artistic research

To facilitate the PhD in the arts, and artistic research more broadly, most universities and the Schools of Arts they are associated with have created specific organizational units. These vary in institutional embeddedness and executive mandate, and foreground the specific ways in which the Flemish associations have conceptualized artistic research (see Figure 2).

The Associatie KULeuven arguably represents the most integrated example, with the LUCA Faculty of Arts effectively fusing the university and the School of Arts (LUCA) into one organizational unit dedicated to artistic research and doctoral trajectories in the arts. Due to this, distinctions between ‘artistic’ and ‘academic’ researchers are less strict, allowing, for example, for arts-based PhD holders to apply for (internal) professorial vacancies. This, in turn, facilitates the acquisition of external funding, since in many cases the participation of senior or tenured staff is an eligibility requirement for applications (e.g. FWO; ERC). The Associatie Universiteit & Hogescholen Limburg does not feature an integrated faculty that fuses UHasselt and PXL-MAD, but the interaction and collaboration between the Faculteit Architectuur & Kunst (UHasselt) and MAD-Research (PXL-MAD) is structurally anchored in the association. This is illustrated by the fact that various senior (artistic) researchers at MAD-Research hold UHasselt mandates too, a fact that allows them to act as academic supervisors for PhDs in the arts.

With the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), the Associatie Universiteit & Hogescholen Antwerpen (AUHA) established a university research group dedicated specifically to artistic research. And the doctoral candidates enrolled in the associated Schools of Arts—the Koninklijk Academie voor Schone Kunsten (KASKA), the Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen (KCA), and Sint-Lucas Antwerpen—collaborate with that research group. Although ARIA is part of UAntwerpen, its steering committee consists of faculty from the university and the School of Arts, thus ensuring representation of academic and artistic perspectives. The Universitaire Associatie Brussel (UAB), for its part, maintains a stricter division between the VUB and its associated Schools of Arts: the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema & Sound (RITCS) and the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel (KCB). The Kunstenplatform is situated on the level of the association and counts with representatives from all parties involved in order to organize the PhD in the arts and advise the association on issues related to artistic research. However, despite the presence of various representatives in the Kunstenplatform, the UAB’s format is arguably the least integrated example in Flanders: it acts primarily as an administrative, organizational unit rather than as a substantial space for artistic research to take place in.

If the UGent association is omitted from Figure 2 above, it is because it is unique in not operating a formal, dedicated organ to facilitate the doctorate in the arts in particular, and artistic research in general. Instead, it favors direct interactions between PhD candidates, artistic supervisors, and their academic counterparts. Additionally, it is worth highlighting that, even though all associations characterize the potential outcomes of doctoral research in the arts to be artistic (e.g. film) or scholarly (e.g. peer-reviewed journal publications) in nature, the UGent association explicitly requires PhD candidates to produce both, thus emphasizing scholarly expectations of artistic researchers.