AHRC – Dance Research Matters Network and Programme Lead Opportunity

Funding available to establish dance research networks that explore current issues, generate change and legacy for the sector.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is providing funding to establish dance research networks that explore current issues, generate change and legacy for the sector. There will be up to five networks.

Applicant can also apply for one programme lead opportunity to work with the networks to provide mapping, monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

The aim for the network is to promote collaboration of dance researchers and the wider dance sector to consider sector specific issues that strengthen the dance and practice-based research community.

The role of the programme lead is to provide AHRC with insight into how to generate legacy and embed change for the dance sector. They will achieve this through capturing insights and coordinating with the networks, possibly with innovative practice-based techniques.

Objectives of the Dance Research Matters Programme are to:

• Raise the profile and value of dance as a research area
• Catalyse wider interest in dance research
• Include early career researchers and artists to empower them
• Promote the diversity of dance cultures
• Connect dance disciplines and cultures together to enable future collaborations
• Consider holistically the dance agenda from the ground up
• Diversify the approaches to sector issues by sharing knowledge and expertise
• Build towards the future of dance research and practice-based disciplines
• Understand better the challenges facing the practice-based community
• Engage the public in dance as a research field through community interaction.

Examples of disciplinary areas of focus:

• Dance history
• Dance theory
• Dance anthropology
• Dance education
• Dance science
• Decolonial knowledges
• Embodied knowledges
• Indigenous knowledges
• Choreography
• Performance practices
• Dance technology
• Dance and health, therapy
• Dance and disability
• Environmental
• Business and commercial dance
• Dramaturgy of dance.

AHRC are keen to ensure all parts of the UK are represented through the networks.

All successful networks will be expected to work collaboratively with the programme lead.

The programme lead will map the dance research ecosystem, including areas such as:

• How and where dance research happens
• How and where dance research intersects with other areas of dance such as professional performance and choreography, education, community dance
• How and where dance research intersects with other research disciplines, particularly embodied
• Assess the impact of dance research as a practice-based research area
• Assess the health of the career landscape for dance researchers
• Language used by dance research community.