Applications are invited for a 3 year Collaborative Doctoral studentship funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) within the Connected Communities programme. The successful candidate will join the On the Edge (OTE) research group at Grays School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen working in collaboration with Woodend Barn Arts Centre (hereafter the Barn), Banchory, Aberdeenshire and Centre for Entrepreneurship, Aberdeen Business School.

The research questions how creativity is channelled and provoked by the presence of an artist and in what ways this presence stimulates critical, socially and aesthetic understanding and action. It draws on a recent history of artists’ constructs and protocols for critiquing the institutional and organisational. It also draws in entrepreneurship studies, in particular approaches to understanding community as a dynamic.

The project offers a unique and exciting opportunity to join the following project partners
The Barn, (1994-present) as a leading art centre in Scotland, acts as a case study of a networked, organisational model and flat structure that supports and develops the inner and outer life of its communities through the arts (www.woodendbarn.co.uk).

On the Edge Research, IDEAS Research Institute, RGU is a practice led research programme in the arts that focuses on understanding and articulating the role of the artist in the public sphere (www.ontheedgeresearch.org).

Centre for Entrepreneurship, Aberdeen Business School (ABS) was set up in 1995 to promote and research entrepreneurship, focusing in particular on how values are socially situated, predominantly focused on rural experience.
(http://www4.rgu.ac.uk/ABS/centres/page.cfm?pge=5256)
The studentship will be supervised jointly by Professor Anne Douglas, OTE, Mark Hope, the Barn and Professor Alistair Anderson, ABS.

The successful applicant will meet the AHRC’s criteria for eligibility, including residency criteria and be able to demonstrate the potential to develop advanced research skills. The prospective student should be highly self-motivated and should have a keen imaginative and critical interest in the arts in contemporary life. This studentship provides full university fees for UK and EU applicants and a tax-free maintenance allowance of a £13,590 per annum. Any inflationary increase in the subsequent two years will be subject to AHRC approval. The studentship is available to start from 1 October 2011 or 1 February 2012.

For further written details, please email v.dawod@rgu.ac.uk. Informal enquiries are welcomed and should be made to Professor Anne Douglas, a.douglas@rgu.ac.uk.

Applications including a completed application form (available from http://www.rgu.ac.uk/research/degrees/page.cfm?pge=26828), a detailed CV, names and addresses of two referees should be emailed to researchdegrees@rgu.ac.uk or posted to:
Research Degrees Office (AB44), The Robert Gordon University, Schoolhill, Aberdeen AB10 1FR.

Deadline: 1st September 2011.

Shortlisted applicants will be interviewed 22nd-23rd September 2011.