Collaborative Doctoral Awards

Collaborative Doctoral Awards (CDAs) are projects co-designed, and jointly supervised, between a Midlands4Cities university and an external partner organisation. CDAs offer diverse and unique research projects that support the work of the partner organisation. Studentships are four years for full-time study.

Information can also be found via M4C's Find a Project page.

Decolonising and Digitising the Royal Shakespeare Collection

The first sustained investigation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Fine Art and Sculpture” collection in Stratford-upon-Avon, this project analyses an internationally significant theatre collection through a decolonial lens. By exploring the archive’s colonial connections and how these might be understood, it will develop a critical and historical approach to the RSC’s holdings. Its final outputs include work towards the digitisation of the collection. 

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From Independent Film to Integrated Praxis: Regional and Historical Contexts to the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop (1979-1989)

This project examines the activities and impact of the Birmingham Film & Video Workshop (BFVW), an influential West Midlands film organisation which operated between 1979-1989 under the leadership of Roger Shannon.

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Co-Creating Collections for Priority and Future Audiences: Socially Engaged Photography and Small to Medium Sized Public Organisations

The CDA is a unique opportunity for a practice-based researcher to work in the context of a live national partnership project supported by an internationally recognized, cross institutional supervisory team within the context of the UK’s leading socially engaged public photography programme.Based at the Open Eye Gallery, with access to two additional national collections housed at museums across Aberdeenshire local authority, Scotland and Armagh local authority, Northern Ireland, this CDA invites candidates to think through the challenges faced by small-to-medium art organisations in how they use and build meaningful and accessible collections through socially engaged processes.

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