Practice Together

Practice Together is one-day workshop at Birmingham City University

Friday 12 September 2025 9.30 – 4.00, refreshments and lunch provided

This workshop aims to bring together doctoral students engaging with practice research to develop their understanding and confidence around the final submission formats of their PhDs.

Register via Ticket Tailor here

With practice research enabling and recognising diverse modes of knowledge generation and articulation, a practice research PhD rarely culminates in an academic text of 80,000 words (which has been the traditional format for an arts and humanities doctorate). Whether undertaken through artwork, curation, exhibitions, compositions, performances, events, creative writing, design, textiles, film, and/or digital interactive media, practice research needs to be disseminated in an appropriate form to the fields and communities who benefit from such knowledge. Universities and examiners expect this practice to be accompanied by a mode of textual analysis or exposition to support its position and to demonstrate critical reflection. Moreover, documentation of the research process can be extremely useful and may be essential to developing the critical reflection. Yet the diversity of potential ways to bring practice, its documentation, and contextual critical reflection together can lead to uncertainty and concern amongst doctoral students. With no one model to follow, they can be unsure of what might be appropriate, legitimate, and possible within university systems for their own PhD. This workshop aims to demystify concerns, reassure doctoral students and excite them about the possibilities for constructing their own practice research PhD submissions through sharing examples and discussing the challenges. The workshop and its outcomes will highlight the ways practice research is innovating and changing the expectations for how a thesis might look and be experienced for all PhD students across the arts and humanities. This will offer an opportunity to actively participate, network and share your own practice, challenges, and questions.

The workshop is a M4C collaboration between BCU, DMU and Coventry.

Sian Vaughan (BCU), Mel Jordan (CU), Alissa Clarke and John Young (DMU) are convening the day. Graduate doctoral students and staff will share their experiences, approaches and tips.