The 2009 conference is hosted by The Science Shop, Queen's University Belfast

Sustainable research on art and culture through CBR

Technical and medical research has an obvious impact on society through technical designs, medication and other practical outcomes.  It is also clear that it is up to CBR to help society in influencing the research agenda.  The case is quite different regarding research in humanities.  In recent years the social value of arts and cultural research is being questioned in Holland.  How can the usefulness of studying literature or history be measured?

An interesting outcome of governmental and research council policy plans for research in humanities is that CBR and public outreach is viewed as an important way to make humanity research sustainable.  This offers Science Shops like ours a chance to put CBR and outreach activities on the agenda of researchers and university policy makers.  The Language, Culture and Communication Science Shop has been asked to play a role in implementing new policies starting in 2009.

Example of project:

Narrative art and elderly people

We started interactions between art researchers and civil society actors to explore how research on narrative art concerning the theme of ageing and the elderly can be performed as CBR and how this can contribute to knowledge transfer.

Questions:

How can we convince researchers that CBR doesn't make research less fundamental?

How can we shift the use of art and cultural forms in interaction with society from a nice passtime to something worth researching?

How can we measure the value of CBR in society?

How can we deal with practical research outcomes and the factor time?

Theme: Sustaining CBR practice through arts and cultural forms

Presenters Name: Saskia Visser

Presenters Institution: Language, Culture and Communication Science Shop, University of Groningen, Netherlands

Presenters Biography:

Saskia Visser is a linguist who studied at Groningen University, the Netherlands and Reading University, England. She worked as a language, communication and public relations teacher in secondary schools, higher education and incompany training before she returned to Groningen University.  Since 2002 she has worked in the Language, Culture and Communication Science Shop, in the faculty of Arts and she also manages the helpdesk for secondary school pupils undertaking research in humanities.