CRASSH, Cambridge University, April 16th

'Risk and Innovation' is the first in a series of three workshops funded by the AHRC and NESTA to address the issue of the evaluation of Arts and Humanities research and its value to the wider economy.  An element of risk is often inherent to creative processes and innovative research in the Humanities. A tension therefore exists between public funding regimes that emphasize goals, outputs and impacts, and research that entails different kinds of knowledge practices more geared towards process than product. While the risk associated with open-ended innovation has gained acceptance in industry, there seems at times little tolerance for risk in the Arts and Humanities, where it is often written out of funding proposals and replaced by specified goals and cost-effective outputs. The workshop aims to explore the kinds of creative processes and innovation that operate in various forms of Arts and humanities research. What kinds of metrics might be used to ascertain different forms value creation, ownership and forms of knowledge that operate in the Arts and Humanities? What kinds of metrics might be used to measure non-linear modes of knowledge production, in which knowledge is networked, dispersed, a consequence of engagement between people with different skills, imaginations and often different goals. In what ways can public organisations foster creativity without risking investment in areas that may not produce immediate outputs? 

Questions to be posed include:

•   What are the various kinds of risks involved in Humanities research?

•    Does the mitigation of risk in relation to impacts and outputs constrain innovative practice in the Arts and Humanities?

•    What kinds of metrics might be adequate for assessing innovation in the Arts and Humanities?

•    Are there transferable benefits of Arts and Humanities Research?

•    In what ways do instrumental ideas about knowledge apply to humanities research and practice-based innovation?

Confirmed speakers:

Giles Lane, Proboscis

Lorraine Warren, Entrepreneurship and Innovation School of Management, University of Southampton

Sally Jane Norman, Director, Culture Lab

Ruth Levitt, RAND Europe

Prof. Kate Oakley, Visiting Professor at City University and University of the Arts London

Prof. Calvin Taylor, Professor of Cultural Industries, School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds

Seymour Rowarth-Stokes, Pro VC, University for the Creative Arts

Brendan Walker, Director, Aerial

Prof. Alan Hughes, Director, Centre for Business Research, Judge Business School, Cambridge

Robert Dingwall, Institute for Science and Society, University of Nottingham

Nell Munro, School of Law, University of Nottingham

Pat Kane, Author of 'The Play Ethic'

Dani Salvadori, Director of Enterprise and Innovation, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design

For further information visit the workshop web page, http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/781/.   For booking enquiries please contact Michelle Maciejewska, mm405@cam.ac.uk