ActinArt

Research

One of the ActinArt activities is undertaking research supporting the development of the field of career-related education in artistic universities throughout the Nordic and Baltic region. The research activities are undertaken by our partner institution’s teachers and researchers as well as in cooperation with external institutions.

Our current research focus

The motivation to focus research about the entrepreneurial education offered to the creative fields’ students stems from the observations made by network members both in higher education institutions as well CCIs ecosystem in general for almost a decade. 

Observations made in classes, intensive courses, in discussions, encounters, formal interviews, written reports and feedback all hint that there are significant gaps between several binary pairs: 

  • educators’ expectations and students reality
  • anticipated learning outcomes and subjective learning outcomes
  • policy agenda for CCI and market and education reality
  • EU-funding aims and contribution of funded projects. 

Beginning with the student’s self-development and all sorts of classroom situations, throughout entrepreneurial education philosophy and pedagogical approaches toward the larger picture of CCIs in Nordic-Baltic region and finally to the EU funding measures (as part of EU policy) We are deconstructing traditional understanding of creative entrepreneurship introducing a more ecological approach towards this topic which allows us also to look beyond Estonian context. 

As knowledge ecology we believe the societal tasks of the university to be: 

  • improving the circulation of knowledge
  • enhancing human understanding
  • developing the public sphere
  • injecting principles of openness
  • rigour & criticality into public debates 
  • working with a concern for the whole Earth. (Barnett, 2016). 
The aim of the research activity is to map and analyse existing career-related efforts in Nordic-Baltic countries, explore patterns, best practices but also recognize areas of improvement to further form a pool of expertise in designing and facilitating the development of pedagogical practices enhancing students’ career development. 

Additionally, we explore the outcomes of international research and development programmes and cooperation projects on arts education and entrepreneurship (e.g. Erasmus LLP, INTERREG, Nordplus) to the broader context and trends of arts entrepreneurship education.

In ActinArt we believe that the key action should be creating educational concepts that will allow students to deepen their awareness and critical analysis of what is happening in society, in their professional ecosystem and in their own mindset. The novelty of our research is that we strive to propose informed changes to the existing praxis surpassing individual survival-skills acquisition towards pedagogy fostering the mindset that enables artists to become agents of change in the society around them.

 

Ongoing projects

The working group of the project tries to answer burning questions How can musicians as entrepreneurs follow the mutable trends of the music sector? How can institutions prepare the students for their future careers?

Project funded by the European Union Creative Europe programme focusing on the precarious position of young music professionals who lack the necessary skills to position themselves in fast-changing market conditions.

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