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Research Impact
Research@Central both informs and is informed by the wider contexts of our work. These include the huge range of vocational teaching undertaken in the school, the professional creative practices of our researchers, and their engagements with numerous industry partners in the arts and heritage sectors and wider public-sector stakeholders. Such engagements are undertaken in a spirit of productive and critical dialogue with the creative and social economies, focusing on the public relevance of theatre and performance, and the positive impact of the arts on communities. This enables our research both to benefit stakeholders and to have transformative impacts on professional practices and wider publics.
Researchers at Central embed impact into projects at all stages of their realisation. We co-design research with partners and collaborators. We pursue processes of enquiry with co-researching partners and publics, and we disseminate our findings among key stakeholders to maximise their impact outside the academy. These processes underpin our collective commitment to pursuing socially relevant research, which is also evidenced by a frequent focus on fostering equality, diversity and inclusion across the numerous contexts of theatre and performance in the twenty-first century.
In 2022, Central was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council Impact Acceleration Account to extend the impact of our research. This enabled us to create our new Centre for Research Impact in the Performing Arts.
You can find out more about the impacts of our research through the following projects:
Projects
Innovating Knowledge Exchange: Student Involvement in Delivering Better Patient Experience in the NHS is a project jointly funded by Research England and the Office for Students.
Professor David Harradine’s practice research is conducted through the cross-disciplinary arts company Fevered Sleep, of which he is co-artistic director, and integrates creative practices, participation, and innovative approaches to partnerships, public engagement, and touring in order to bring about social change.
The Verbatim Formula (TVF) has enhanced understandings of care-experienced young people’s needs, enabling this marginalised group to benefit from improved social and educational inclusion, and to become involved in processes of debating, re-shaping, and enhancing policy and professional practices in the care sector.
A series of projects called ‘Performing Places’ in six areas of the UK produced significant improvements to well-being, community cohesion and social integration, engaging almost 12,000 community members as well as arts organisations and practitioners, Higher Education institutions and 3 local authorities.
Addressing inequalities in the British theatre and performing arts industries, researchers at Central have collaborated with industry professionals to produce impacts across the sector. Ben Buratta, Gilli Bush-Bailey, Tom Cornford, Stephen Farrier, and Katharine Low have identified and interrogated inequalities in employment and representation, relating principally to gender and sexuality.
Professor Maria Delgado’s research on Spanish and Latin American cinema and performance has both generated and been developed through numerous collaborations with filmmakers, distributors, film programmers, and festivals. These partnerships have led to wide-ranging and intersecting impacts on creative and industry practices in the culture and heritage sectors.