Rethinking ‘knowledge exchange’: new approaches to collaborative work in the arts and humanities

Abstract

This paper explores approaches to collaborative work between arts and humanities disciplines in UK Higher Education and the creative economy. The paper examines the work of four Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy established by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). These hubs fund collaborative ‘knowledge exchange’ (KE) projects between creative businesses and academics in the arts and humanities. The paper first outlines the unclear relationship between knowledge exchange activities in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the creative economy. The second step unpacks the approaches to KE that the hubs are developing. The third step considers what the consequences of such projects might be. The paper concludes that such ‘third mission’ activities are never neutral or apolitical spaces. Rather, they are sites where assumptions about collaboration and creativity are being remade, and that this is a space for both opportunity and critique.

Keywords:

• knowledge exchange
• arts and humanities
• Higher Education
• creative economy
• co-production

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number AH/J005185/1].