Working with the University: Top Tips for Creative Practitioners

Introduction

The University of Exeter has approximately 5,000 staff and 30,000 students across four campuses, serving a dual function of providing education and research. Half of the staff are academics, working in subject disciplines as lecturers and researchers, and half are ‘professional services’, providing a broad range of operational skills and expertise.

There tends to be two ways that creative practitioners engage with the university

The project originates inside the university, and the institution is seeking input from a creative practitioner. For example, a social scientist might seek a creative practitioner to collaborate on workshops with key stakeholders and produce new resources to connect with targeted audiences.

The project originates outside the university, and the creative practitioner is seeking input from university staff. For example, a gallery might seek a climate researcher to participate in a public talk, or discuss the latest thinking with a commissioned artist.

We will discuss each of these ways in turn. We’ll start by looking at how to find out about creative projects initiated inside the university, and then offer some tips about how to find staff and/or students to contribute to projects initiated outside the university. We also offer some further guidance on how to frame your proposal, and a brief summary of the university structures to aid navigation.

We also offer some further guidance on how to frame your proposal, and a brief summary of the university structures to aid navigation.

How to find out about creative projects led by the University

From the outside, the university can appear unwieldy. A number of core systems are centralised, such as HR and Finance, but a huge amount of decision-making is decentralised, where separate institutes and departments, or even independent staff members, are responsible for how they deliver their own area of work. This means that creative projects and programmes can pop up anywhere at any time, and there is no single ‘clearing house’ for this information.

We know that this decentralised system is challenging for external providers, so the university offers a number of communication channels to promote the creative opportunities that do exist.

We recommend these sources:

How to find staff and students to collaborate on your creative project

The challenge is finding not only the right person, but also getting the right timing. There is a huge amount of knowledge and goodwill at the university, and often an enthusiasm to connect with external communities.

The Arts and Culture team is often approached by creative practitioners and cultural organisations, looking to connect with university staff and students. The requests vary from one project to the next, but can include seeking information about the latest research, offering opportunities to collaborate on projects, or speak at events, or help evaluate and/or promote creative outputs.

At the same time, staff and students are working to tight deadlines and ambitious targets, and juggling multiple priorities. Consequently, your search for the right person/people needs to consider not just relevant expertise but available capacity too.

To begin, we recommend searching the Faculties/Departments list of the university to identify the discipline(s) you are interested in. Note that institutes, centres and research networks are all interdisciplinary in nature, so depending on your request, this cross-cutting approach could help identify thematic areas of interest, such as health and well-being, or social justice.

Please note that climate research is a huge field, with many disciplines within it, so take some time reading department and staff profiles to get a sense of what would be the best fit.

These sections of the University website might also help narrow your search:

We recommend making a longlist of potential contacts, as you might need to make a few approaches before finding the right fit for your project. If you are interested in the work of a whole team, start by contacting either the team lead or administrative support and ask for suggested contacts. Due to the high volume of email traffic received by staff, keep your initial message concise and be clear about a) what you are working on and b) what you are asking for. It would be appropriate to send a follow up enquiry a few weeks later, and if still no reply, move on to your next potential contact.

Alternatively, if you have existing contacts at the university, they might be able to make appropriate introductions on your behalf. We also recommend the following points of contact if you would like advice on who to approach at the university with your creative project idea:

General Guidance

While it can take some persistence and patience to find the right connection with the university, it can lead to whole world of amazing ideas, inspiration and future collaborations. There is a huge interest in creative processes at the university because they are recognised as a route to greater interdisciplinarity and a means of tackling complex challenges with new approaches. We recommend the following websites and reports to gain an understanding of why this way of working is valued by universities, to help tailor your approach:

The differences in scale, budget and timeframes can prove challenging when universities partner with smaller cultural organisations and creative practitioners. For example, there might be a last minute rush when artists are asked to provide information for a research grant proposal, and then months of waiting, followed by a flurry of activity if the grant is successful. Everything moves either very quickly or very slowly. The financial precarity and limited cash flow that many cultural organisations need to manage isn’t always understood.

Clear communication is essential to ward off trouble, especially when discussing time and money. Regular meetings and updates with an agreed agenda will help ensure each party is aware of the pressures faced by the other, and minimise disruptions.

How the University is Structured

It is helpful to know some of the key structures and terminology used at the university. Knowing the difference between a school and an institute, for example, will be useful when you are responding to callout, so you can better understand the context of the opportunity. It can feel like searching for a ‘needle in a haystack’ to locate specific expertise within the university, so an understanding of the terminology will also be useful to help narrow your search.

Academia

The academic disciplines are arranged under three overarching FACULTIES.

Departments and Schools

Faculties are made up of DEPARTMENTS, which are clusters of disciplines (for example: Communications, Drama and Film). Faculties also hold SCHOOLS, which are clusters of departments in related disciplines. At Exeter, we have the following:

Institutes

Faculties also hold INSTITUTES, which are interdisciplinary in nature, made up of academics working across a broad range of disciplines, often responding to specific global challenges or contexts.

Centres and Research Networks

There are dozens of CENTRES across the university. They are often, but not always, smaller than institutes. They are interdisciplinary in nature, and vary in scale. Two larger examples are:

Other examples include:

Exeter South Asia Centre (HASS)
Centre for Imperial and Global History (HASS)
Centre for Environmental Arts and Humanities (HASS, Penryn)

There are 16 approved RESEARCH NETWORKS at the university. They run programmes with colleagues and publics, support interdisciplinary research communities, and foster new connections.

For example:
Exeter Food
Exeter Marine
Children and Young People’s Wellbeing @Exeter

Academics and their Acronyms

The career progression route for an academic is Lecturer -> Senior Lecturer -> Associate Professor -> Professor.

There are also additional duties that academics can take on as part of their roles, where they become a point of contact for thematic priorities.

The Doctoral College supports PhD students, who may also contribute to teaching and research at the university. It is a bridging space, for the period after receiving initial tertiary qualifications but before embarking on a career as a lecturer. The Research Development and Research Culture team in the Doctoral College deliver training and development, including creative activities. You might hear the following acronyms:

ECR – Early Career Researchers
PGR – Post-Graduate Researchers

So an academic will have a discipline (eg. English), and belong to a department (eg. English and Creative Writing) within a faculty (HASS). They could be on an E&S or E&R contract, have a status ranging from Lecturer to Professor, and have additional roles, such as DoBI. They might also be part of an Institute (SCI) and/or a Centre (WCCEH). All academics have an online University of Exeter profile that lists their affiliations; this is a useful resource for understanding what, if any, further responsibilities and interdisciplinary connections exist.

Professional Services

Professional Services (PS) staff are arranged in DIVISIONS. Each division is headed up by either an Executive Divisional Director or a Divisional Director. The divisions are:

The Divisional Leadership Team, headed by the Registrar, also includes Directors of Faculty Operations (one per faculty) as well as Director of Cornwall Operations and Director for Enabling Strategy 2030.

Some PS staff work centrally, providing support across the whole university, and other PS staff provide specialist support in a particular Faculty, School, or Institute. For example, Student Wellbeing and Welfare, and the Library are centralised services and work with all students. In contrast, every Faculty has PS staff from across the divisions to provide targeted management on HR, finance, IT, etc.

To give an example, Arts and Culture PS staff are part of the EAS and EEG Divisions, but our faculty home is Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Professional Services teams also periodically collaborate with creative practitioners. If you have an interest in systems, processes, and networks, there could be some interesting connections to be made here. There are also specific services, such as Wellbeing, where Creative Health approaches could be of interest.

FX Plus

A different Professional Services model is in place for the Penryn and Truro campuses in Cornwall. FX Plus provides joint PS for Falmouth and Exeter universities. They provide student accommodation and campus services, including commercial operations. This means that students at Falmouth and Exeter Universities share halls and catering, but receive separate qualifications.

Students’ Union/Students’ Guild

Student voice is championed through independent charitable organisations, the Students’ Union (for Falmouth and Exeter students in Penryn and Truro) and the Students’ Guild (for students based at the Streatham and St Luke’s campuses in Exeter). They have their own management structure and report to a Board of Trustees. A permanent staff team is supported by a Student President and Vice-Presidents, who are voted in each year by their fellow students. Contact the Students’ Union and/or Students’ Guild directly if you are looking to make links with Student Societies. There are a huge range of amazing creative and cultural projects led by the Students’ Union and Students’ Guild.