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.
Current opportunities
Early Career Researcher Creative Collaboration Seed Fund
King's Culture is launching a seed fund open to Early Career Researchers (ECRs) from across King's, to enable development of a project proposal with an artist. The scheme offers enhanced support to Early Career Researchers to develop new collaborations to advance research enquiry and public engagement with research.
In keeping with King’s ambition to accelerate research, education and action across the university to enable environmental sustainability, proposals should address the theme of 'Sustainability' in a broad sense.
The scheme is open to any UK-based artist/creative practitioner working in any medium, though is most likely to appeal to emerging artists with an interest in collaborating with a researcher.
Alongside the fund, we are offering a networking event for researchers to meet artists and a series of workshops on how to develop a collaborative creative research project.
The deadline for applications is Monday 12 June 2023 at 10:00.
Find out more about the seed fund and how to apply.
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.