WHAT IS RESEARCH?
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), previously the Higher Education Funding Council for England, defines research as:
“…a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively shared.”
From the get go, we can question what this means for us?
Certainly, many within the arts struggle with this interpretation, finding it vague and lacklustre. For IML, it may represent a restrained definition that constricts understandings and approaches to research rather than liberating opportunity, imagination and ingenuity.
We believe we have rare opportunity to disrupt and agitate conventional understandings of research, and provoke exciting new perceptions and approaches to academic exploration. As well as new beginnings, we can also action new endings for academic research, and the way it has previously been shaped and conducted within many academic institutions.
We question what knowledge and knowing can mean for us, whether this always needs to adhere to fixed or universal understandings, and whether we might engage with research as an impermanent, transitory, or unforeseen process.
Accordingly, our aims are:
Advance research across a broadest possible spectrum of fashion and design-related areas, however innovative or conventional these may be.
Develop communities of curiosity that extend understanding, empathy, and wellbeing for us all.
Develop progressive new initiatives, opportunities and resources for inclusivity.
Imaginatively communicate our research processes and findings for a fast changing and progressively interconnected world.
Research is about making an informed difference to a world, and this is where you come in.
We believe that research represents a new realm of discovery and knowledge for us all that will galvanise students, strengthen and extend staff teamwork, and instruct a wider world differently.
Whilst we recognize widely endorsed research pillars such as:
ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY
PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES
HEALTH AND WELLBEING
and DIGITAL FUTURES
We are determined to vigorously amplify these themes through
VISIONARY PERCEPTIONS,
establishing new research horizons and opportunities that may not yet be recognized or supported at other research institutions.
This is really significant. Developing our own brand of research activity will deepen and extend curriculum, enhance staff expertise, demonstrate divergence from other research institutions, and take IML’s progressive outlook out into the world in fresh and compelling ways. This will characterise us as pioneering at a time when the UK academic landscape is at risk of shrinking and receding.
We Would Love For You To Join Us On A Collective Adventure.
We genuinely believe that your contribution is indispensable in driving new knowledge and opportunity at IML. Together we can generate exceptional new synergies with one another, with industry, with external partners, and with a world changing at pace.