RES 012. Research methods in the arts and humanities. First edition

A training course that forms part of Epigeum's Research Skills Master Programme.

RES 003. Getting published in the arts. First edition

A training course that forms part of Epigeum's Research Skills Master Programme.

Prizes for modernity in the provinces: The Arts Council’s 1950-1951 regional playwriting competition

As part of its contribution to the 1951 Festival of Britain, the Arts Council ran what can be seen in retrospect to be an important playwriting competition. Disregarding the London stage entirely, it invited regional theatres throughout the UK to put forward nominations for new plays within their repertoire for 1950-1951. Each of the five winning plays would receive, what was then, the substantial sum of £100. Originality and innovation featured highly amongst the selection criteria, with 40 per cent of the judges’ marks being awarded for “interest of subject matter and inventiveness of treatment”. This article will assess some of the surprising outcomes of the competition and argue that it served as an important nexus point in British theatrical historiography between two key moments in post-war Britain: the first being the inauguration of the Festival of Britain in 1951, the other being the debut of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger in May 1956. The article will also argue that the Arts Council’s play competition was significant for two other reasons. By circumventing the London stage, it provides a useful tool by which to reassess the state of new writing in regional theatre at the beginning of the 1950s and to question how far received views of parochialism and conservatism held true. The paper will also put forward a case for the competition significantly anticipating the work of George Devine at the English Stage Company, which during its early years established a reputation for itself by heavily exploiting the repertoire of new plays originally commissioned by regional theatres. This article forms part of a five year funded Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project, ‘Giving Voice to the Nation: The Arts Council of Great Britain and the Development of Theatre and Performance in Britain 1945-1994’. Details of the Arts Council’s archvie, which is housed at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London can be found at http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/wid/ead/acgb/acgbf.html Keywords: Arts Council of Great Britain, regional theatre, playwriting, Festival of Britain, English Stage Company (Royal Court) , Yvonne Mitchell

Geography, skills and careers patterns at the boundary of creativity & innovation: digital technology and creative arts graduates in the UK

In the last decades, research on knowledge economies has taken central stage. Within this broader research field, research on the role of digital technologies and the creative industries has become increasingly important for researchers, academics and policy makers with particular focus on their development, supply-chains and models of production. Furthermore, many have recognised that, despite the important role played by digital technologies and innovation in the development of the creative industries, these dynamics are hard to capture and quantify. Digital technologies are embedded in the production and market structures of the creative industries and are also partially distinct and discernible from it. They also seem to play a key role in innovation of access and delivery of creative content. This chapter tries to assess the role played by digital technologies focusing on a key element of their implementation and application: human capital. Using student micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, we explore the characteristics and location patterns of graduates who entered the creative industries, specifically comparing graduates in the creative arts and graduates from digital technology subjects. We highlight patterns of geographical specialisation but also how different context are able to better integrate creativity and innovation in their workforce. The chapter deals specifically with understanding whether these skills are uniformly embedded across the creative sector or are concentrated in specific sub-sectors of the creative industries. Furthermore, it explores the role that these graduates play in different sub-sector of the creative economy, their economic rewards and their geographical determinants.