Completed Projects

Polifonia

Since its launch in 2004, the ERASMUS Network for Music ‘Polifonia’ has proactively addressed European higher education policy issues from the perspective of higher music education (HME).

WG2 Artistic Research in Higher Music Education

This working group (WG) has focused on quality enhancement in relation to the role of research in higher music education (HME) institutions. It has paid particular attention to artistic research. In doing so, it has examined the role of students, especially at Masters and Doctoral level, as well as considered how best to support the development of conservatoire teachers as artistic researchers. The establishment of a European Platform for Artistic Research in Music has been one of its means of achieving this. After a pilot event in Belgrade in 2010, the first conference of this platform took place in Rome (May, 2012) and was followed by two further events (Lyon, April 2013 and Stockholm, March 2014).

Deliverables/outcomes

Delivery of three meetings of the European Platform for Artistic Research in Music EPARM – This has been done in cooperation with a EPARM WG. As well as the successful delivery of EPARM 2012 and EPARM 2013 in Lyon, it was decided to hold a discussion forum in 2014 at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. THe event provided an opportunity for a joint platform with the Society for Artistic Research focused on the features of artistic research across the different artistic disciplines. The reports on the EPARM meetings can be found here.
Study of the content of 2nd Cycle HME programmes as routes to artistic Doctorates – The group conducted a survey of existing practices as to the philosophy and design of 2nd Cycle programmes and gathered opinions on how this practice might be developed. This work has informed its handbook, looking at 2nd Cycle curricula in terms of how they can combine the functions of ‘gateway to the profession and bridge to the 3rd Cycle’.

Perspectives on 2nd cycle programmes in higher music education: English.
Perspectives on 2nd cycle programmes in higher music education: French.
Perspectives on 2nd cycle programmes in higher music educations: German.

European register of peer reviewers for artistic research in music –The group has developed a database of student projects at Masters and Doctoral level and determined to include in the fields of this database not only the project title and a short abstract but also the name of the supervisor to make possible for institutions and individuals to identify supervisors working in a particular topic area. Thanks to the involvement of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR) in the working group, a further refinement of the database concept has been introduced, integrating it with the Research Catalogue (RC) of artistic research expositions whose management is one of SAR’s key activities.

A ‘Polifonia’ portal has been established on the RC as the location for the database. To go to the Polifonia portal on the RC please click here.

Contribution of the 3rd country partner

The WG’s work has been greatly supported by the experience of the two representatives of the 3rd country partners, one from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University (Australia) and the other from McGill University Schullich School of Music (Canada). The WG was helped enormously by both the support and the critical perspectives offered from these colleagues,who have actively contributed to the development of the final outcomes as well as to their dissemination in several events.