The University of Westminster is delighted to invite applications for 3 Collaborative Doctoral Awards as part of the University’s AHRC Doctoral Landscape Award.
The AHRC Doctoral Landscape Award is a major new funding scheme from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Its aim is to grow the UK’s capacity for doctoral research in the arts and humanities and to create a vibrant, inclusive research culture.
Project overview
Creative Research & Development spans artistic practice, technological experimentation, and innovation policy. It has long contributed to the vitality of the UK’s creative economy, both within large organisations and through distributed production collaborations, particularly in screen-based fields: film, video games, animation, virtual production. In recent years, this activity has become formalised through publicly-funded initiatives, including the AHRC’s Creative Clusters and CoSTAR programmes, as well as the wider field of “CreaTech” (Creativity + Technology). Despite this growth, Creative R&D remains an emerging area of research, with limited shared frameworks for understanding or evaluation.
Within this context, arts organisations are frequently celebrated in policy and public discourse but remain poorly understood in practice. Existing evaluation systems tend to prioritise visible outcomes such as visitor numbers or social media reach, leaving institutional research and development work – and its contribution to wider innovation systems – largely invisible and undervalued.
This Collaborative Doctoral Award addresses this issue by examining how value, labour, knowledge and resources move through art-technology production networks. The Serpentine’s Arts Technologies department, established in 2014, offers an ideal research setting, with a strong track record of commissioning experimental work and producing sector-facing research through its Future Art Ecosystems (FAE) innovation hub.
Launched in 2020, FAE explores forms of creative activity that extend beyond conventional artistic production. Its work engages with areas such as decentralised technologies, public-facing applications of artificial intelligence, game engines, and the role of Creative R&D in shaping innovation systems. Supported projects have developed new prototypes, including a stewardship protocol for supporting artistic practices and a trusted data intermediary framework for AI training. FAE also functions as an innovation hub, supporting embedded research, cross-sector partnerships, policy engagement, and strategic briefings. Its most recent research publication, FAE5: Art x Creative R&D (2025), argues for recognising Creative R&D as a distinct area of innovation and for developing new funding, policy and measurement approaches to support this work.
Building directly from this body of work, the PhD project offers a unique opportunity to bridge academic scholarship and institutional innovation. The precise scope will be developed collaboratively between the student and supervisory team. It is likely to involve close engagement with the Serpentine’s project archives, key staff and wider networks of artists, technologists, researchers, institutional partners, policymakers and other ecosystem collaborators. The research is expected to combine empirical investigation with critical analysis, contributing both to academic debates and to practical understanding within the cultural sector.
The successful candidate will benefit from doctoral training and academic supervision at the University of Westminster, including access to the research communities of the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) and the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media (CREAM). This will be supported by regular contact and engagement with the Serpentine, with opportunities to observe and contribute to ongoing work, and participate in relevant events or publications where appropriate. Supervision will be provided jointly by University of Westminster academics and the Serpentine’s R&D Strategic Lead, offering a supportive interdisciplinary supervisory environment.
Project partner
Serpentine Arts Technologies (Serpentine Galleries).
Eligibility
Applicants must hold an undergraduate degree (essential) and, ideally, a master’s degree including a research component (preferred). Candidates without a postgraduate qualification will be considered if their undergraduate degree included a substantial research project with an overall classification equivalent to high merit or distinction.
We welcome applicants with arts, humanities, social sciences or interdisciplinary backgrounds. Candidates should be able to demonstrate some familiarity with empirical social research, an understanding of the contexts and challenges facing cultural organisations or cultural policymaking, and an interest in developing these skills and knowledge further.
Applicants should have some literacy with qualitative or quantitative research methods, or a combination of both, with a willingness to develop methodological skills over the course of the PhD.
Relevant interests or experience may draw on one or more of the following areas, though applicants are not expected to have expertise in all of them:
- Innovation studies and science and technology studies (STS)
- Cultural policy and arts management research
- Media and communications studies
- Action research and participatory design
- Critical studies of technology and art
- Arts practice research
- Experience working in or with the cultural and creative sector is likely to be beneficial but is not essential. Those without professional sector experience, but with a good understanding of key characteristics and challenges of the field, are encouraged to apply.
Funding
Landscape Awards include:
- Home fee tuition fee waiver (International students will be responsible for the difference between the Home fee waiver and the International fee).
- A 3.5 year tax-free stipend at the UKRI minimum rate, plus London weighting (£22,780 per annum for 2025/26) (for CDA projects the duration is 4 years).
- Access to professional development opportunities, placements, additional funding and the London and the East of England Hub.
How to apply
Under ‘Additional Course Questions’ in your application, it is essential that you include the title of the studentship: SAT- CDA.
Application deadline: 30 April 2026 (for a start date of 1 October 2026).
For informal enquiries about the project, please contact the lead co-supervisor Toby Bennett - [email protected].