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Faculty of Arts & Humanities

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Undisciplined Spaces

Training postgraduate researchers to co-create community impact projects that bridge research with the needs of local communities across London.

The Undisciplined Spaces programme is co-produced by the Young Foundation, a sector-leading research institute for community research and social innovation, to provide impact and engagement training for postgraduate researchers. The programme has run for three iterations funded by the Impact Acceleration Award (IAA), with the Faculty of Art & Humanities recognising its value and continuing the programme with internal funding as a legacy of the IAA.

Undisciplined Spaces is a gateway programme to develop students beyond their thesis and academic identity by providing impact literacy, project development and management and interpersonal communication. Objectives for participants include:

  • Learning the skills to embed impact and knowledge exchange activities, and the tools to evaluate their effectiveness, into research to make it societally relevant.

  • Making a positive difference by working with a local community to address issues important to them and enhance their capacity to create change.

  • Expanding skills and mindset from a traditional PhD experience by: developing an innovative project creatively and unconventionally; working in an interdisciplinary team of postgraduate researchers; engaging with issues of cultural competency and sensitivity.

  • Receiving specialist training in community engagement and involvement alongside a suite of transferable methodological skills.

  • Engaging with, and learning from, different local communities.

  • Developing foundational literacy in critical knowledge exchange and research impact, two aspects of UK and international academia that are important considerations for individual grant applications and institutional rankings (e.g. Research Excellence Framework, Knowledge Exchange Framework, Times Higher Education Impact Rankings).