PRR Project

Summary

This research and teaching position signals an emerging interdisciplinary scientific and educational field, articulating the regimes of creation and production in the arts and scrutinizing the impact of the environmental crisis on cultural policies and artistic practices. As a hybrid field, arts management has only recently entered academia (Sesic 2024) and is still dealing with important specialisation and epistemological deficits in Portugal, even though it is increasingly considered central to the development of a robust arts and culture field and instrumental to a myriad of societal challenges: cultural rights, democratization of culture, intercultural dialogue, etc). The consolidation of this area at the University of Coimbra opens up the possibility of pursuing a highly innovative research and education area, while at the same time equipping the Faculty of Arts and Humanities to deliver key skills in one of the fastest-growing segments in the arts field. An objective example of this is the pioneering study programme launched in 2023 by FLUC: the Postgraduate Programme in Cultural Management and Sustainability started as an experimental knowledge transfer experiment connected to the FCT-funded GREENARTS pilot research project but ended up receiving almost 5 times as many applications as the initially projected. This position corresponds, thus, not only to a burgeoning agenda of research, but also to an expanding area of academic specialization, one in which significant skills shortage has been diagnosed.The hired researcher should come from the broad field of the arts and culture and art studies and be familiar with state of the art in the fields of the arts, cultural policy, creative production, ecology and ecological transition. It is crucial that the arts and humanities establish links with the current context of environmental crisis and climate emergency, which is indisputably one of the most important contemporary collective challenges, and one of a colossal dimension. Indeed, ecological distress is already impacting artistic and curatorial decisions, as well as challenging production, touring and management models (Janssens & Fraioli 2022; Rodrigues, 2024; VoC, 2023; Vries 2021). The environmental emergency can rightly be seen as a major disorganiser of the modi operandi of the arts and culture field, insofar it questions the assumptions of cultural policies, the underpinnings of funding mechanisms, and the routines of creating, producing, managing, distributing, and experiencing art. This rapidly changing context produces a series of critical knowledge gaps, which this research position aims to address. Since the research position sits at the intersection between arts management, cultural policies and the ecological emergency, incorporating a problem as complex as climate change into the arts and culture, it holds significant future potential in terms of its impact and relevance within and beyond the academic sphere.The hired researcher will address the discursive and practical transformations of artistic production and cultural policies in the face of growing demands for ecological awareness and eco-responsibility. They will lead an ambitious research plan in arts and sustainability, conducting excellent research around a complex problem which transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, using an eclectic mix of quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches, as well as arts-based methods. They should be ethically minded and ready to engage in a politically and socially controversial research subject. They should develop research and study programmes that are internationally recognized, aligned with the UN SDGs, and part of a global debate, while also remaining relevant at national level. Job description and specific tasksThe researcher will:Identify emergent critical skills for the cultural sector and propose and develop new or updated curricula/contents for FLUC’s offer at postgraduate level; Coordinate and teach at the Post-Graduate Programme in Cultural Management and Sustainability and oversee its evolution towards a MA degree offered by FLUC as well as actively contribute to the construction of an Erasmus Mundus International Joint Master Degree in the field of Arts and Sustainability in partnership with the University of Antwerp and the Estonian Academy of Music (in preparation); Update curricula in the fields of cultural management and production in the Master in Art Studies and the Master in Cultural Heritage and Museology. Conceptualize and implement ad-hoc societal activities and Knowledge Transfer Experiments in close liaison with civil-society agents for the circulation and transmission of research outputs.