Get Involved

The Graduate School is conceived of as an open flexible architecture for inter-institutional, inter-disciplinary collaboration. We are currently at the early stages of establishing a number of mechanisms to foster interactions between the graduate school and colleagues and practitioners working across a wide spectrum of disciplines. This page will be used to keep existing and potential collaborators appraised of early stage project development to enable collaborative inputs to commence from project initiation stage and thus ensure a fully collaborative process. If you wish to make contact with the School in connection with a specific initiative please email the named contact person identified in respect of each project.

Doctoral Supervisors Discussion Group.

This discussion group was convened to provide the supervisory teams - of researchers working with the School - with an opportunity to meet each other and inform the School of the relevant issues and needs that supervisory teams face in delivering supervison and support to their researchers. This is the first in a series of discussions which will also be open to interested colleagues based in other institutions beyond the four collaborators - DIT, NCAD, UU and IADT - driving the Graduate School project at this time. Expressions of interest in participation are welcome: aidan.mcelwaine@gradcam.ie

The first meeting took place on Friday April 11th:

Marian Palmer (IADT) with Dr. Gina Wisker at the conclusion of the supervisor workshop with 25 personnel from the collaborating institutions seeking to identify what needs to be done to generate a sustainable culture of best practice supervision. 11/4/2008.

Supervisor Consultation Workshop #1

Special Guest Speaker: Dr. Gina Wisker, University of Brighton

Programme;

9:30 Coffee

9:50 Welcome

10:00 -13:00 Workshop Introduction: Dr. Gina Wisker

Our goal is to build a sustainable community of research supervisors who work together and achieve visibility for our broad sector of research. We have invited Dr. Gina Whisker to lead an introductory workshop on the issues around PhD supervison

13:00-14:15 Lunch

14:15-15:30 Workgroups: “Support for the supervisor”
What are the issues that research supervisors face?
How can supervisors be supported most effectively?
How may the Graduate School play a role in this?

15:45-16:45 Development:
“The supervisor as a researcher in her/his own right”
How may the Graduate School play a role in supporting the supervisor as a researcher?

16:45 – 17:00 Next Steps

PhD Proposal Development Workshops.

The next workshop is scheduled for Friday May 30th.

These workshops are designed to support researchers in the PhD proposal development stage. The workshop typically consists of a one-day intensive programme consisting of lecture; criticism and analysis seminar; sample proposal evaluation and analysis; and technical writing session. The workshop is then followed up by a one-to-one 45 minute session based on a detailed discussion of the individual research proposal with members of the Graduate School team.

If you would like to participate in this workshop, simply email an expression of interest including:

(a) a copy of your CV;

(b) a first draft of your research proposal; and

(c) an indication of why the general area of your proposed research is relevant to the goals and remit of the Graduate School.

The numbers participating in each workshop are kept small to ensure that each participant is facilitated to evolve the best possible research proposal rooted in their specific personal research interests. The first workshop took place on Friday March 28th.

The next workshop is scheduled for Friday May 30th.

Email expressions of interest to mick.wilson@gradcam.ie

Include the phrase "proposal workshop" in the message title.

Critical Design Research Practice:
Investigating the critical potential of the "Massive Change" paradigm.

'mobilise' project

"No longer associated simply with objects and appearances, design is increasingly understood in a much wider sense as the human capacity to plan and produce desired outcomes. Engineered as an international discursive project, Massive Change: The Future of Global Design, will map the new capacity, power and promise of design."

This early-stage enquiry takes as its point of departure the attempt to map the potential of design methodologies to re-frame over-arching questions and challenges presented by contemporary social, economic and resource-management systems and processes. The goal of this phase of enquiry seeks to establish a framework discussion that maps the potential of critical design practice with specific reference to contemporary Irish society. Rather than simply address pre-specified "needs" the task we begin with is to identify how such paradigms of "need" are constructed. Central to this process of enquiry is the task of implementing methodologies for participatory, collaborative and interdiciplinary research.

The first step in developing this initiative will be to establish a core working group of researchers - both undergraduate and postgraduate. These researchers will work with the Graduate School Visiting Fellow for 2008 - to be announced shortly - to develop a series of practical propositions for public dissemination; these propositions will seek to give concrete specificity and detail to the development and application of "massive change" type design strategies in an Irish context while articulating the local - global critical interconnections. As part of developing this enquiry we wish to investigate the emergence of a locally-inflected "creative cities" discourse and to engage key stake-holders in dialogue about the potential for critical design research to enhance this emergent discussion.

Email expressions of interest to aidan.mcelwaine@gradcam.ie

Include the phrase "mobilise" in the message title.

Image: Sakia Sassen's work on the globalised mobility of capital and labour.

In engaging the topic 'mobilise' the researchers were conscious of the critique that has been constructed around the techno-utopian tendencies in much transformative and liberatory design discourse. See David Stairs, founding editor of the Design-Altruism-Project and his critical review of such initiatives.

Profiling Creative Practice Doctoral Research.

The School is inviting a range of doctoral researchers working across archtecture, design, visual and performing arts, music and media to participate in an important international conference in May 2008 at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin. It is intended that discussions of procedure and emergent national policy guidelines will be informed by direct encounter with live research project work providing a plurality of exemplars and case-studies in arts research and creative practice.

For more details visit our conference page.

Talking Curators:
Reviewing 10 Years of Curatorial Discourse.

Curating Degree Zero is a touring archive of curator's work which will be hosted by the West Cork Arts Centre in March and April of 2008. Curating Degree Zero was launched to research, present and discuss changes in the practice of freelance curators, artist-curators, new-media curators and curatorial collaborations. Beginning in 1998 with a three-day symposium and an ensuing publication, the project now focuses on an expanding archive about these practices, which is touring as an exhibition, accompanied by a programme of live events and discussions. As part of the programme of events taking place the Graduate School will be co-organising a seminar on the condition of curatorial practice after a decade of unprecedented expansion and discussion.

The seminar is scheduled to take place on April 4th 2008 (14:00-17:00) at the West Cork Arts Centre. The seminar will use the opportunity provided by the presentation of the curating degree zero archive in Ireland to explore the current state of curatorial practice and the progress of the debate on curating over the last decade. If you would like to participate please contact aidan.mcelwaine@gradcam.ie with the phrase "curating degree zero" in the message title.

Peer-review processes, metric construction and practice research.

A medium-term goal of the School is to contribute to national and international debates in respect of creative practice research by engaging in a range of meta-research activities including the development of appropriate peer-review processes and metrics. Integral to such an undertaking will be a broader investigation into key axes of debate in the contemporary research enterprise of both public and private players across the European research space.

If you would like to be placed on an email list and receive updates in respect of these sectoral development initiatives email meta_research@gradcam.ie