Exhibiting our Research Excellence

Benz Kotzen

The School of Design Annual Exhibition celebrates the high quality and wide scope of design work that is undertaken across our programmes. This display is largely visual, with stunning and evocative graphic and illustrative pieces that culminate from weeks, sometimes months and in some cases years of keen and creative thinking that unravels sets of problems that are enthusiastically conquered by the students. In Film and TV and Animation, the skilful and creatively produced work integrates sound, image and word bringing together practical and avant-garde productions that challenge the intellect and can evoke strong emotions. And whilst words are often used across the board, particularly in graphic design, the word is king across the disciplines, in the writing of essays on theory, context and history and particularly in students’ dissertations which acquire increased intellectual rigour and writing proficiency as they progress through their undergraduate programmes and into post graduate taught programmes. These works in words, accompanied by supporting images, (some of which are showcased at the 2022 exhibition) are extremely important “outputs” as they confirm both the writing and design abilities of prospective employees at job interviews as most creative jobs require their employees to be able to write all sorts of documents from simple letters to complex reports.

The term “output” is extremely current, particularly in the context of the REF. The Research Excellence Framework ‘is an internationally recognised system for assessing the quality of research in the UK’s Higher Education Institutions’. This submission identifies the highest quality outputs that have been produced by academic staff during the REF period which was from 2014 until the end of 2020. The outcome of the submission to the REF by the University as a whole, is used to calculate the funding that is allocated to institutions for the next REF cycle. The submission is not only important in terms of funding, but it also indicates the strength of research across the staff in the School of Design and particularly as a means of calculating the growth in quantity and quality of research from 2014 to the end of 2020, calculated from the outputs themselves (60%), Impact Case Studies (5%) and the Research Environment (15%).

Submissions to the REF are organised according to 34 separate Units of Assessment (UoAs) devised to cover the full range of research activity areas. The philosophy of the School of Design was to submit as many staff as possible, i.e. those who are undertaking research under Unit of Assessment 32, Art and Design: History, Practice & Theory. This resulted in 33 (30.5 FTE) staff submitting outputs at an average of 2.5 outputs per person (as required by the REF) with a total number of 75 high quality outputs, (books, book chapters, edited books, refereed journal articles and Multi Component Submissions [MCSs]) most of them at 3* and 4*, i.e. of quality that is ‘internationally’ and ‘world leading’ and our impact was also predominantly 3* and 4*. The 17 MCSs were an outstanding new addition to the submission

portfolio. These focus on practice based research and combine the outputs of the researcher practitioner over a period of time in text and images which describes the research outputs, discusses the research question(s) and highlights the rigour, significance and impact of the research. 3 Impact Case Studies were produced and these combined with the Outputs and the Environment Statement provided a coherent and robust submission which raised our research quality and power way above where we were in 2022. For this, everyone involved should be congratulated as follows: George Ayekum Mensah, Michael Aling, Ghislaine Boddington, Rosamund Davies, Konstantinos Evangelinos, Somaiyeh Falahat, Lionel Feugere, Ivan Garcia Kerdan, Duncan Goodwin, Jim Hobbs, Anne Hultzsch, Ikpe Ibanga, Lindsay Keith, Stephen Kennedy, Andrew Knight-Hill, Maria Korolkova, Benz Kotzen, Hannah Lammin, Catherine Maffioletti, Anastasios Maragiannis, Sarah Milliken, Effiness Mpakati-Gama, Shaun Murray, Elena Papadaki, Caroline Rabourdin, Mohammad Sakikhalis, Miriam Sorrentino, Walter Stabb, Ian Thompson, Ed Wall, David Waterworth, Julie Watkins and Jonathan Wroot.

The number of Post Graduate Research (PGR) students, those who are undertaking and completing PhD research is on the rise and so are our staff who are starting their PhD studies here in the School of Design. More opportunities are being given to ECRs (Early Career Researchers) to bid for research and participate in research projects and the supervision of PhD students. This is very important for our development of PGRs and ECRs, so that we can grow research in the School. Indeed, we want every academic staff member to be undertaking research and with this goal in mind, every staff member, where required will be mentored. We have been successful in numerous internal and external funding bids and we have either completed these or are currently working on these with UK and EU partners. All of these projects in themselves create new knowledge, but also provide a means for KE (Knowledge Exchange) which is a key strategic objective of the University, where our research makes a real difference in terms of society, economy and the environment

Covid was an awful time and whilst we are not totally immune to its impacts, we can now look forward and approach our research with renewed vigour and purpose. Our engagement with the REF has driven home the fact that research has to have impact and that it needs to benefit people, profit and planet. These are the 3 foundation pillars of sustainable development. Going forward we are embracing the University’s strategy of our research engaging with the United Nation’s (UN’s) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals), such as ‘no poverty, zero hunger, gender equality, sustainable cities and communities, life on the land’ etc. and we are already preparing for the next REF which will be towards the latter part of the 2020’s. Our transformation from 2014 to 2021 was remarkable and now we are looking forward to doing even better based on our commitment going forward and on the knowledge and experience gained.

Dr Benz Kotzen Associate Professor, Research and Enterprise Lead School of Design