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Arts Graduate Centre: Building Community, Developing Skills and Improving Employability in the Arts.

The Arts Graduate Centre (AGC) offers a unique social and training space which has been developed specifically for Arts Faculty postgraduates. Its main activity is grouped around building a community for postgraduates in the Arts Faculty, developing skills and improving employability. It has a centre which provides a place to study, socialise and find out information. AGC has a strong web presence which includes an interactive researcher portal using a workspace platform. This year it is piloting a compulsory training prrogramme, offering 3 days of bespoke training to Arts Faculty PGRs per year, alongside an an annual events programme (approx 30 instances) which is bespoke to the Arts Faculty and complimentary to the cross-Faculty Graduate School training offer at Nottingham. AGC also runs larger-scale conferences and networking events, often with a knowledge transfer or an interdisciplinary focus. These include interdisciplinary symposia, speed-conferencing evenings, HE fairs and research poster competitions. AGC has a strong history in arranging paid placements opportunities (30 per year) which are uniquely supported by regular guided groupwork (reflective practice sessions) and one-to-one support. AGC also supports postgraduate-led initiatives with project planning and proposal-writing advice. These have included a feminist reading group, the Nottingham Poetry Series (funded by Arts Council & Lottery Fund) and Mind the Skills Gap (funded initiaive to bring consultancy-level business training to Arts Faculty postgrads trhougha series of 8 full or half-day workshops.) . AGC also seeks additional funding annually to develop a special interest strand which speaks to training, social and networking needs amongst the postgraduate community as well as the knowledge transfer agenda. Last year we ran AGC Year of the Writer which had a Writer in Residence who coordinated a series of writing workshops (poetry, novels, for broadcast), author talks, a creative writing competition and local schools-based writing activities (co-ordinated by 2 paid postgraduate interns.) This year we received AHRC funding to run ResearcherCurator - a placement-like programme where participants are offered 4 days of specialist trainign and mentoring to design and deliver an element of public programming at the Galleries of Justice, Nottingham (see separate database entry). Part of the AGC events programme is also available to final-year undergraduates in order to support Faculty postgraduate recruitment. AGC is also piloting an alumni mentoring programme - Bridges - which is designed to match postgraduate students up with alumni already established in a range of career sectors for a 6-month e-mentoring relationship. Alumni have been an integral part of our Moving On series which uses alumni to deliver short training interventions designed to be responsive to the requirements of key potential employers. This included 'Copywriting and proofreading skills ofr publishing' (delivered by Publishing Operations Manager at Hodder & Stoughton. The Arts Gradaute Centre also works in collaboration with another Graduate Centre to offer training/information/social events to early career researchers.
Institution(s):
University of Nottingham
Region(s):
Midlands
Date first submitted:
15 Sep 2008
Date last modified:
27 Oct 2010
Focus:
  • Researcher-led activities
  • Personal effectiveness
  • Research project skills
  • Academic practice
  • Knowledge exchange
  • Researcher development strategy/management
  • Enterprise-related activities
  • Career development
Audience:
  • Postgraduate researchers
  • Research staff
  • Research masters
Range:
  • Faculty
Rationale, aims and outcomes
What is the rationale for doing this?
How does it fit with institutional strategy?
What are the main features of the provision?
What are the aims and expected outcomes?

The AGC is designed to support a flourishing postgraduate research community and to tailor graduate provision for the Arts.

The AGC forms part of the University of Nottingham's "hub & spokes" model of graduate provision. It is one of 4 graduate centres which work alongside the central Graduate School but are based at a Faculty level.

Through its activities the Arts Gradaute Centre supports the University's Researcher & Knowledge Transfer and Teaching & Learning strategies.

 

The AGC aims to develop its provision for postgraduates and postdoctoral research staff by:

1.      Identifying and applying for funding and award opportunities that are aligned with Graduate School activities and where success will enable an improved provision for the PGR and ECR communities. 
Demonstrating responsiveness to the changing researcher environment (globally, nationally and institutionally) through the range of researcher development activities that we offer and diversifying the modes of delivery.  

2.     Seeking to increase the proportion of researchers attending researcher development opportunities. 

3.     Ensuring that researcher development activities are based on appropriate values and principles, and are underpinned by appropriate pedagogy

4.     Evaluating and reporting on the impact that researcher development activities have made to individual researchers and the wider researcher community.

5.     Encouraging collaborative research activity across the institution through the support and development of web-based technologies (researcher portal) by PGRs/ECRs, and providing access to this information to external organisations.

6.     Supporting the employer engagement and skills development agendas, raising awareness and use of PGR/ECRs by the local SME community in particular, and employers in general, and creating opportunities for longer term collaboration through postgraduate placements. 

7.     Delivering a range of relevant and timely academic and social events that:  Support the development and employability of PGRs/ECRs;  Encourage the engagement of the University community in the PGR/ECR agenda;  Encourage the participation of a wide range of external organisations and promotes PGRs/ECRs and the research and KT agenda to them;  Facilitate KT activities through the development of positive and productive relationships with external individuals and organisations.

 

The outcomes will be: a more cohesive, effective research community with stronger links to external organisations, a broader, more developed skillset and thereby enhanced employability.

 

Engagement
Are there any pre-requisites for engagement, e.g. levels of skill, years of experience, essential pre-activities?
How many participate in each 'activity'?

AGC sees approximately 750 individual registrations for its events programme per year.

AGC sees approximately 150 placement applications per year.

Footfall in the centre averages 30 PGs per day.

 

Evaluation: benefits, challenges and next steps
How do you monitor effectiveness?
Who do you seek feedback from?
Do you have benchmarks?

The benefits are the development of a more cohesive, effective research community with stronger links to external organisations, a broader, more developed skillset and thereby enhanced employability. 

Success is (and will be measured) through frequent analysis of evaluation data.  

AGC also takes a strategic steer from the following stakeholders:  central (Faculty-wide) Graduate School at Nottingham, AGC Stratgey Group (which is made of Directors or Research from all Schools in the Arts Faculty and other senior academics from individual departments), AHRC, AGC Users Group (postgraduate-led)

AGC was also invited on to the Arts Faculty Knowledge Transfer Working Group.

In addition AGC has working relationships with a range of external organisations including Nottingham Contemporary and Arts Council East Midlands 

 

Engagement

AGC continues to strive to engage with postgraduates from all Schools/Departments in the Faculty and with more difficult to engage groups such as part-time students.  It aims to manage the challenges of different levels of engagement by continuing to improve how it communicates with both postgraduate students and staff.

Funding

AGC continues to revise and develop its evaluation strategy in order to demonstrate its impact and attract alternative post-Roberts funding .

 

AGC is striving to develop a best-in-class centre.  It sees provision developing in the all the ways outlined in the aims section above and with particular focus on:

1.     strengthening its role in the University's Research and Knowledge Transfer agenda by continuing to devise events and initiatives which build relationships with external organisations (partly with a view to working towards alternative sources of future phd funding.)

2.     developing its alumni relations further to ensure up-to-date and relevant support for PhD students wishing to pursue a wide range of careers, and with a view to expand its career insight provision, placements and exploring the potential for industry-based mentors.  (This will include scoping out the resource implications of  'an offer of support' for postgraduates in their first year post graduation)

3.     furthering its role in fostering interdisiplinarity amongst the postgraduate community - this year through an interdisciplnary writing prize based on British Art Show 7:  In the Days of the Comet.

 4.    continuing to hone the functionality of the researcher portal  to develop a more effective on-line presence.

5.     developing the most effective way of communicating AGC activity to academic staff and final-year undergraduates in order to continue to raise AGC profile with supervisors and potential PG students (and thereby enhance engagement at all levels.)

6.     continuing to review and develop evaluation mechanisms (particularly with a view to capturing longitudinal impact data.)

 

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Dr Rebekah Smith McGloin

Ms Sarah Kerr