ENGAGEMENT

This keynote will reflect on research and research collaborations that are inspired by hope. Hope lies the heart of many movements, humanitarian campaigns, and creative projects designed to make the world a better place. Cultural and third sector organisations and NGOs often rely on researchers to help them understand and interpret complex environments, and often use evidence from research to leverage funds for their work. By drawing on a range of examples of research collaborations inspired by social justice and democratic artistic citizenship, this keynote will ask questions about the role of research and researchers in creating hopeful research at a time when funding is tight, and ambitions are high. It will reflect on the opportunities presented to researchers by engaging with different partners, publics, and communities, examine what it means to disrupt established narratives and listen to stories that may be hard to hear. How can we, as researchers, balance our creative and intellectual interests with the needs and interests of different partners, and in a way that builds hope?

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Prof. Helen Nicholson is Professor of Theatre and Performance at Royal Holloway, where she specialises in socially engaged performance. She has led several AHRC grants, most recently researching the civic role of theatre in towns. Helen regularly works in partnership with theatres; she is currently leading research on the National Theatre’s flagship programme in communities, Public Acts, where she is working with charities that support people living with childhood trauma, homelessness, and care-experienced young people and with the Young Vic Theatre’s ground-breaking Innovate programme in London schools. As academic advisor to Storytrails, Royal Holloway’s contribution to Festival Unboxed, Helen is working with Diverse Interactive to create a VR experienced informed by her research on the arts in dementia care. Helen is a keen advocate of partnership-led and interdisciplinary research, and committed to that research changes the world.

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This keynote lecture will also be livestreamed to view online via Zoom - please click here to register for the livestream.