This cluster builds support for and values practice-based research and research-creation. We seek to lead innovative thinking and methods in creative making across disciplines and practices, envisioning new ways of knowing and engaging with the world while challenging existing conventions and epistemic models. We position the arts at the centre of research inquiry with a view to acknowledging the creative work critically, across and beyond the academic, industry-led and community sectors. While critically posing questions about gender, race, disability, inclusivity, equity and intersectionality, we hope to develop new sensibilities to address the work of underrepresented groups, such as mother-artists and refugees’ creatives.

Our commitment to practice-based methodologies stems from a recognition that embodied knowledge and creative processes generate unique insights inaccessible through traditional research paradigms. We validate creatice practice as a legitimate mode of inquiry capable of producing rigorous theoretical contributions while remaining entangled with lived experience and materiality. This approach dissolves artificial boundaries between theory and practice, allowing for more holistic and nuanced scholarship.

The interdisciplinary nature of our members facilitates unexpected collaborations, generating fertile ground for methodological innovation, conceptual breakthroughs, and cultural critique. We value the productive tensions that emerge when diverse disciplines engage in dialogue, with these encounters providing opportunities to transcend conventional thinking in academic research in order to develop more responsive approaches to complex contemporary challenges.