Cultural Policy & Management  PhD / MPhil

The Department offers the research degrees of Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). As is usual in work for research degrees, both require the candidate to demonstrate several things:

• a full understanding of previous research literature and current academic and professional thinking;
• the ability to undertake sustained, high level research and master the theoretical (and where appropriate, practical) aspects of the subject areas relevant to the research field;
• the ability to communicate the subject matter of the research field, and the conclusions of the particular research project, in the accepted academic form of a research thesis.

The research thesis/dissertation must contribute to the advancement of knowledge and the understanding of the subject, either through the communication of substantial new information as a result of the research, or through a significant and novel reinterpretation of previous research and/or knowledge.

An MPhil thesis should demonstrate evidence of systematic study and should be either a record of original work or a critical exposition of existing knowledge; a PhD thesis should similarly demonstrate evidence of systematic study and in addition make a new contribution to the subject, shown either by the discovery of new facts or analyses or by the exercise of independent critical judgement.

All students are initially recruited for the MPhil degree and, if progress is satisfactory, may after the first year transfer to the PhD.

Research Areas

This list is divided into three strands. However, the boundaries between each are not fixed as themes overlap. Central concerns are methodology and interdisciplinarity.

Culture

• Institutional frameworks for the making and uses of art (including theories of representation/display).
• Aesthetics in modernity (including notions of the expert, recondite knowledge, professionalism, managerialism).
• Theories and practices of criticism (including articulations through policy whether stateinitiated or editorials in journals and the press).
• Redefining notions of the universal (including critiques of multiculturalism, and cultural identity).

Cultural policy and policy-making

• Culture within the political realm (including public policy formation, in particular cultural policy and the political process).
• Economy of the arts (including globalisation, political economy of the arts and changing markets).
• Creative industries (including regeneration).
• Cultural governance (international and local).
• Cultural value (from a political perspective but also aesthetic).

Management of culture and cultural organisations

• Ethics and cultural management (including work place bullying, and heritage issues).
• Impact and evaluation (applied and measured, determinants of 'evidence', crisis of legitimation).
• Leadership (gender and ethnicity).
• Management practices and discourses (institutions and languages in particular: micro- and small-business behaviour; strategic management; organisation capacity; organisational development; performance management in cultural non-profits).
• Artistic programming.
• Professional development of cultural practitioners (education and training).