Stirling Media Research Institute (SMRI) has been awarded a three-year grant by the AHRC for a project on 'Creativity: policy and practice. A study of Government, the BBC and the UK Film Council'.
Applications for a three-year postdoctoral research assistantship are invited from well-qualified candidates with an interest in, and extensive familiarity with, contemporary UK policy issues in the fields of film and television. Applicants should have a relevant PhD.
Informal contact should be made with Professor Philip Schlesinger, Director of the SMRI. Email:
[email protected].
This appointment will be on the Research Assistant Scale (Salary £19,405 to £22,507 per annum), dependent on experience. The post is a full-time three-year appointment and will commence on January 1st, 2006.
The study will research how creativity, both as a concept and a practice, has been affected by UK government policy. It will analyse creative industries policy since New Labour came to power in 1997. It will document where ideas about cultural creativity and its economic significance have come from and investigate how policy debate has been shaped. It will also undertake two detailed case studies of the impact of policy on creative practice in the BBC and the UK Film Council. Finally, addressing the question of how devolution affects policy and practice, attention will be focused on BBC Scotland and the moving image agency, Scottish Screen. The Scottish dimension of the research will be the principal task of the project's PhD student, whereas the postdoctoral research assistant will work on all the other aspects.
The postdoctoral research assistant will be involved in comprehensive data gathering for the project. This will involve extensive collection of relevant documentation, such as UK government papers, think-tank output, academic publications, consultancy reports, etc. Along with other members of the project team, the research assistant will also be involved in undertaking expert interviews with key figures including policy makers, senior management personnel in the BBC and UKFC, and a variety of 'creatives'.
In addition, the research assistant will help in organising interviews for the other members of the research team and will also service the regular project meetings and the meetings of the project's advisory committee. He or she will also be involved in organising project seminars, including the closing seminar.
The project is intended to produce a series of academic papers and conference presentations and other forms of dissemination. The final outcome will be a monograph. It is expected that the research assistant will be involved in drafting material for these publications, will engage in the work of disseminating the project's findings, and will be involved in co-authorship of some of the output.
