Career, Confidence and Connections

UWE Bristol, June 2011

Professor Paul Gough

• Peaks, fields and troughs

• Lessons from elsewhere?

• Gather or disperse?

• Communication breakdown?

Disruptive and disturbing where disciplines meet and unlock.

• Who do we talk to? • Are we shaping ‘the public sphere’?

• Engagement, Exchange, Impact. The buzz words

• Doing too much but not enough?

• Tech transfer; participation; innovation; social cohesion; outreach; community; public engagement; enquiry; research, teaching….

Taking the higher ground … or exploring the hinterland

RESEARCH EXCELLENCE RESEARCH EXCELLENCE FRAMEWORKFRAMEWORK

Digging deep mines of ‘narrow’ enquiry.

The perils of REF and the problem with measuring inter-, multi-,trans- disciplinarity.

The language we use - research and the intelligent lay reader – guiding light

Network power - who do you know? Who knows you?

How many fields do you work in? How wide is your field?

What are your generic skills and qualities?

eg: Landscape & Environment• Writing the landscape of everyday life: lay

narratives of the home garden (A.Church)• Academic conferences; • Refereed journals;• MOA displays in public libraries;• Dissemination at RHS events; flower shows;• Public interaction ‘Gardeners Question Time’• Collaborative studentships

Chicken Run, 2000

‘Paul GoughDesign Research’

Being strategic

Developing an individualised eco-system

‘Every day plant a seed; nurture a shoot; harvest some fruit’

KE does not necessarily = widgets• Knowledge transfer model – a linear

transaction from University lab to industry• Widget – patent - tech transfer – commercial /

industrial exploitation• Does not recognise dialogue, reciprocal

relationships• Knowledge as a social phenomenon, not just

an innovation that can be fixed, made specific for others to access, acquire and use.

The computer games industry

“ Expanded rapidly on the back of technological innovation only to find that software engineering could not sustain the sector .. the widening age profile of gamers … much more diverse market. Games developers knew that new approaches were needed ... from drama and dance, interactive design, non-linear narratives, animation, music computer games development it is the arts that drive the technology.”

Locative media technologies Using mobile handset Visitors to an archive of cinema equipment to trigger interactive site specific media content

Cultural impact: informing heritage policy in the UK; impacting on other archives, museums, galleries

Tracked through ticket sales, evaluative feedback questionnaire… REF outputs and other forms of afterlife…

Economic impact: increase visitors to the cinema and collection; direct financial benefits for cinema and local economy

Educational impact: enhancing curriculum development across theory and practice modules; feed to research centre’s remit; augment HLF bid

Social impact: encourages local community to consider its past; take pride in cinema heritage, feed into HLF bid

Innovative application of

mobile technologies in a heritage context

‘Creative conversations’

• ‘Knowledge is, by its very nature, networked, coming from the encounter of people with different skills, imaginations and often different goals.’

• Networking is the predominant business model .... The explanation lies in the way that knowledge is constituted, developed and transmitted, often in cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral interactions.

“ When introduced, the REF will reward academics who wish to spend part of their career outside universities – in, say, a cultural institution – and recognise the incidental impacts of excellent scholarship.”

David Willetts, British Academy, March 2010

Short article on Aspects of Landscape: ‘Topographical Sketching in the Army’ 3 pages, The Artist, June 1993

Exhibitions, practice…

Readers response: veterans stories; television documentary: ‘Drawing Fire’: IWM, C4,

Book chapters: 'Tales from the Bushy-Topped Tree': A Brief Survey of Military Sketching Imperial War Museum Review

Conference papers: ‘Spectacle and the Sublime on the Western Front’, War, Art, and Beauty, Association of Art Historians Annual Conference

Doctoral study on ‘reconnaissance’; studio drawings in measuring landscape, ‘The Draughtsman’s Contract’

Virtuous cycles: Salami slicing or a rich ecology?

Officer: ‘Gunnery, gentlemen, is an exact science of measurement and calibration’

Officer: ‘Gunnery, gentlemen, is an exact science of measurement and calibration’

Temporary officer, ex-artist: ”But Sir! What about my personality?”

http://www.vitae.ac.uk/

Dictating the Rules

Sciencewise

Sciencewise-ERC - the UK’s national centre for public dialogue in policy making involving science and technology issues.

Public engagement on landscape and ecosytem futures: Evaluation and learningSciencewise-ERC funded project 2011

Vitae.ac.uk

• Once you have some achievements behind you, another critical aspect of successful career development is often who you know – or more importantly, who knows you.

• Developing your academic reputation and network is an essential part of establishing a successful academic career.

• Developing a wider range of contacts, through chance or design, can be the key to finding opportunities outside your research field.

Vitae.ac.uk/enterprise“… some universities, such as the University of Oxford, are also establishing a range of

initiatives to support and encourage knowledge transfer:

• Dreamer: A big idea of how something can be better and different

• Innovator: Demonstrate how the idea applied outperforms current practice

• Passionate: Expressive so the idea creates energy and resonance with others

• Risk taker: Pursues the dream without all the resources lined up at the start and distributes the risk

• Dogged Committer: Stays with executing the innovation.... to make it work

• Continuous Learner: Constantly exploring and evolving to do best practice….

Creative Economy Hubs4 x 4.0mUK wideAHRC funded but partnership driven

Technology Innovation Centres TICTSB funded via BISGlobal corporate scaleA National centre for Creative Content?

Innovation Networks iNETSBusiness-linkedDemand driven3 years x 2.4mRDA and EU funded

Business Technology Centres BTCResearch-driven enquiryMicro-electronics and media2 years x 2m

Friends and support in the jungle eco-system

Thank you