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Research to innovate and inform

King’s Culture supports King’s researchers to innovate and engage with people through arts and culture, for example through: 

  • supporting early-stage research and development 
  • brokering partnerships and identifying collaborators
  • staging exhibitions and public programmes on the King’s campuses and at Science Gallery London 

The team provides advice and practical support to postgraduate research students, early career researchers, and established academics. We offer a variety of ways to access public audiences, the cultural sector and policymakers. We promote public and community engagement. And enable researchers to share knowledge across the university and with the cultural sector.

Why consider cultural collaborations? 

Working closely with an artist or cultural partner can benefit researchers in several ways:  

  • New opportunities for research enquiry – open up new questions and bring new skills into a research collaboration. For example, King’s Arts Health and Wellbeing Hub. 
  • See problems in a different light – collaborations and particularly residencies, which are more open ended and integrated with research agendas, can provide new perspectives on research. The King’s Artists programme offers open ended collaboration. See, for example, Caitjan Gainty and Helmie Stil as part of the Healthy Scepticism Project. 
  • Public platforms for impact – whether exhibitions, performances, or events, public-facing platforms offer an opportunity to share research with a wider audience. For example, Dark Matter (2019, Science Gallery London) drew on the research of Prof Malcolm Fairbairn and formed the basis for a REF impact case study. 
  • Opportunities to share knowledge – working with cultural partners offers opportunities to bring insight into research, and influence practice within the cultural sector. The Creative Majority Report and National Gallery X are two examples where mutual exchange between the cultural sector and King’s research are benefiting research, policy, and practice.

What if I am interested?

We can discuss a project at any stage in its development. We offer advice on early stage ideas, funding opportunities, developing sector partnerships, disseminating research findings, or booking spaces for cultural activity. 

 

KCL staff can access the King's Culture Researcher SharePoint Hub to learn more about how we can support researchers.

Note: This will require you to login using your KCL user credentials. 

Research & development

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King’s Culture offers early-stage research and development support to advance both academic and creative research.

Platforms

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King's Culture offers a range of physical and digital spaces to support research collaborations and public facing events.

Why is cultural engagement useful?

We have spoken to artists and researchers who have been part of King's Artists, King's flagship residency programme. King’s Artists provides opportunities for artists to be resident within faculties across the university and aims to support residencies that place artists in collaboration with students and staff across disciplines to embrace creativity and take risks, developing new thinking and creative outputs. Many of the artists and academics have presented the work and research developed at King’s during residencies on national and international platforms.