Models for research in art, design, and the creative industries

Research in art and design involves the knowledge and understanding associated with creative works. Practice-led research is also an integral part of art and design. All these areas have been subject to ongoing discussion and debate. One of the current challenges is to produce models that facilitate and enable the development and advancement of research within art and design. However, these models must also synchronise with institutional, national and international frameworks for research development, evaluation, and assessment. The latter can have implications for faculty advancement and also formulaic allocations of research funding across the sector. Practice-led and practice-based research have also generated substantial discussion in terms of seeking a consensus on what is appropriate for developmental purposes and academic assessment. In addition, this area also needs evaluation methods which are fair and consistent across different types of practice. The current situation is that works in these areas are assessed, various types of metric are compared and evaluated, and a proposal is made for the inclusion of metrics alongside the development and use of research models for the development of research. It is argued that deeper analyses of, and more enlightened interdisciplinary approaches to, this are clearly needed.