(After resigning from my previous job in 2022, I enrolled in a practice-based PhD. Over the next three years, I found myself researching the nature of doctoral study in the arts more than pursuing my original research question. I eventually decided to withdraw from the programme. This essay grew out of that experience.)
An inquiry into artistic knowledge, creative practice, doctoral scholarship and the changing meaning of research
Declaration :
Illustration by Chatgpt
Editing : Grammarly
Introduction: Is making art the same as producing knowledge?
For a long time, universities have maintained a distinction between the production of knowledge and the production of art. Knowledge was understood primarily as something established through systematic investigation, critical reasoning, observation and argument. Art, by contrast, was generally associated with imagination, expression, sensory experience, cultural interpretation and creative skill. The distinction was never entirely convincing. Artists have always investigated materials, experimented with forms, studied human behaviour, challenged conventions of perception and developed ways of understanding the world. Yet these activities did not necessarily occupy the same institutional position as scientific, historical or philosophical research.
The emergence of artistic research within doctoral education has made this historical separation increasingly difficult to sustain. If a sculptor discovers new relationships between materials, gravity and bodily action, is that discovery knowledge? If a filmmaker investigates the experience of time through editing and duration, can the film itself be part of a scholarly argument? If an artist develops a series of exhibitions examining how ordinary objects acquire cultural significance, is the resulting curatorial practice a form of research, or does it become research only when the artist explains it in writing?
These questions are more consequential than the administrative differences between a practice-based PhD, a practice-led PhD, a PhD by publication and a conventional research doctorate. They concern the very conditions under which universities recognise knowledge, decide what counts as evidence and determine who has the authority to evaluate an intellectual contribution.
Over the last several decades, art and design scholarship has developed a substantial body of literature addressing these questions. Christopher Frayling's influential essay Research in Art and Design (1993/94), Linda Candy's Practice Based Research: A Guide (2006), Graeme Sullivan's Art Practice as Research, Henk Borgdorff's The Conflict of the Faculties (2012), and Robin Nelson's Practice as Research in the Arts (2013) approach the relationship between practice and knowledge from different directions. Their arguments have contributed to a broader transformation in the way creative work is understood within academic research.
Nevertheless, the growing recognition of artistic research has not resolved all its philosophical or methodological difficulties. In some universities, the artwork has become an accepted component of the doctoral submission, but the written thesis still carries most of the responsibility for demonstrating scholarly originality. In others, artistic practice is recognised as the central means of investigation, yet the criteria through which examiners judge the knowledge generated by the work remain insufficiently articulated. There is also a tendency to treat different doctoral models as neatly separated academic categories, although their definitions, structures and assessment arrangements differ considerably across institutions.
The discussion therefore requires a distinction between three matters that are often confused. The first concerns the nature of artistic knowledge and whether practice can generate a contribution to scholarship. The second concerns the methods through which such a contribution is investigated and made available for critical examination. The third concerns the institutional structure through which research is registered, supervised, submitted and examined. A practice-based doctorate and a PhD by published work, for example, do not necessarily represent competing theories of knowledge. One describes a particular relationship between creative practice and inquiry; the other may describe the way a body of research is assembled for doctoral examination.
A mature understanding of doctoral research in art and design must therefore move beyond the assumption that one model is more artistic, another more theoretical and a third merely convenient for experienced practitioners. The academic significance of each depends on what is being investigated, how the investigation is conducted and what new understanding it can convincingly establish.
The central argument here is that artistic research should neither be forced into the procedures of disciplines with fundamentally different objects and methods nor be exempted from scholarly accountability because artistic experience is complex or hard to express in words. The challenge is to recognise the distinctive capabilities of artistic practice while establishing a sufficiently rigorous relationship between artistic activity, research evidence, critical interpretation and original contribution.
1. How artistic practice entered the university's understanding of research
The idea that artistic practice involves inquiry is much older than the contemporary artistic doctorate. The history of art includes sustained investigations into perspective, anatomy, optics, movement, materials, geometry, colour and the organisation of visual experience. Artistic workshops have served as sites of experimentation, transmission and technical innovation across different cultures and periods. Similarly, artistic traditions have developed elaborate bodies of practical and conceptual knowledge concerning gesture, performance, representation, craftsmanship, materials and aesthetic judgement.
It would nevertheless be historically inaccurate to describe all these activities as doctoral research in the modern institutional sense. The fact that artistic activity involves investigation does not necessarily mean that it fulfils the expectations of a contemporary research degree. The modern doctoral system establishes particular obligations concerning originality, disciplinary context, methodological responsibility and examination. The relationship between historical artistic experimentation and contemporary academic research must therefore be understood as one of intellectual continuity, not institutional equivalence.
A decisive development occurred as schools of art and design became increasingly integrated into university research systems, particularly during the later twentieth century. This integration brought artistic practice into contact with institutional requirements originally developed around other disciplinary traditions. Artists and designers were increasingly expected to demonstrate research contributions, secure research funding, publish scholarly outputs and supervise doctoral candidates. The question was no longer whether artists investigated ideas but whether artistic investigation could be recognised within the university's formal conception of research.
Christopher Frayling's 1993/94 discussion at the Royal College of Art provided an influential language for examining this problem. Drawing on distinctions already circulating in art and design discourse, Frayling discussed research into, through and for art and design. Research into art referred broadly to scholarly investigation of artistic subjects; research through art addressed inquiry involving artistic materials and processes; research for art raised more difficult questions about research whose contribution might be embodied principally in artistic outcomes. His categories were exploratory distinctions, not a universal doctoral classification or a definitive solution to the problem.
Their significance was that they challenged the assumption that artistic practice must remain external to the production of research knowledge. An artist need not simply produce a work and then ask an academic to interpret it. The artistic process itself might constitute part of the investigation.
Reports and policy discussions on practice-based doctorates helped strengthen the institutional recognition of artistic research. In Europe, the European League of Institutes of the Arts published the Florence Principles on the Doctorate in the Arts in 2016. The document called for doctoral programmes that support artistic inquiry while meeting the standards expected of research doctorates. Although it is a policy statement rather than binding law, its significance lies in placing artistic doctoral education within universities’ wider responsibilities for research training, supervision, original contributions and scholarly development.
A related development occurred in international research policy. The OECD's Frascati Manual 2015, which provides a framework for identifying and measuring research and experimental development, recognises research in the humanities and arts when it satisfies the relevant criteria. These include novelty, creativity, uncertainty of outcome, systematic investigation and the potential for findings to be transferred or reproduced in an appropriate sense. The manual is intended principally for statistical and policy purposes, not for assessing individual doctoral theses. Nevertheless, it undermines the simplistic assumption that research must reproduce the experimental procedures of the natural sciences.
The significance of these developments should not be overstated. Institutional recognition does not settle the philosophical status of artistic knowledge. It does, however, establish that research should be judged in relation to its intellectual purpose, disciplinary conditions and methodological adequacy rather than through an inherited opposition between artistic creation and academic inquiry.
2. The central philosophical problem: Can an artwork carry knowledge?
The strongest argument for artistic research begins with the observation that human knowledge is not exhausted by propositions that can be expressed in language. Much of what human beings know is acquired and exercised through bodily action, sensory discrimination, practical judgement and participation in particular material or social environments.
A painter may recognise the exact moment when a relationship of colours becomes visually coherent without being able to specify a set of rules that would produce the same judgement in every situation. A dancer may possess an exceptionally sophisticated understanding of balance, weight, duration and spatial anticipation. A craftsperson may distinguish material conditions through touch or sound that remain difficult for an inexperienced observer to recognise. Such expertise cannot plausibly be dismissed simply because it is not fully available as written explanation.
Michael Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowledge helps explain how people can know more than they can put into words. Donald Schön’s account of reflection-in-action examines how practitioners respond to uncertain situations by drawing on experience, assessing what is happening and adjusting their actions. Together, these perspectives help explain how artists combine skill, experience and judgement with reflection as their work develops.
Yet an important distinction is necessary. The existence of tacit or embodied knowledge does not automatically establish the originality of every artistic activity. A musician can demonstrate extraordinary technical competence while performing an existing composition, thereby generating no new contribution to knowledge. A painter may produce an accomplished work through familiar methods without investigating an unresolved artistic or theoretical problem. Artistic expertise and research originality are not equivalent.
One response to this difficulty is to argue that an artwork conveys knowledge that words cannot fully express. This argument has some force: writing cannot recreate the experience of a sound installation, a film or a sculptural environment. A scholar can explain how a work is organised, its historical context and its aesthetic qualities, yet the reader’s understanding will differ from the experience of encountering the work directly.
Claiming that an artwork contains knowledge that cannot be expressed can lead to circular reasoning: the work is said to contain knowledge, while its supposedly inexpressible nature prevents that claim from being examined. A university needs grounds for recognising such knowledge as an original doctoral contribution. The candidate must show what the work contributes, how it extends existing understanding and how others can critically assess that contribution. This does not require every aspect of the artwork to be put into words, but it does require a clear, defensible connection between the work and the knowledge claimed for it.
Henk Borgdorff's writing is particularly useful because it treats artistic research as an inquiry whose artistic and theoretical dimensions may be inseparable. Practice is not necessarily a preliminary activity followed by intellectual analysis; the work itself may participate in thinking. Robin Nelson similarly emphasises relationships among practical knowing, conceptual understanding and critical reflection. Their positions differ in emphasis, but both resist the assumption that creative practice becomes research only through its later textual interpretation.
The difficulty remains that a doctoral degree is a public scholarly judgement. The knowledge produced cannot be accessible solely through the researcher's private conviction. A convincing practice doctorate must make its intellectual contribution available for examination, even where that contribution is partly embodied, experiential or material.
Consider an artist investigating how the exhibition of discarded domestic objects changes their aesthetic significance. The artist produces a series of installations in which objects are placed under different lighting conditions, arranged according to unfamiliar classifications or juxtaposed with established art objects. The installations may make viewers experience the objects differently. They may also enable the artist to discover previously unconsidered relationships among material arrangement, visual attention and cultural classification.
But several different claims are involved. For instance, the claim that the installations establish unusual visual relationships should be supported through analysis of the works. The claim that audiences understand the objects differently requires appropriate evidence of audience interpretation. The philosophical claim that the distinction between art and ordinary objects is unstable requires a sustained argument engaging aesthetic theory. The historical claim that such installations introduce a previously unknown curatorial approach requires a review of relevant precedents.
These claims cannot simply substitute for one another. An exhibition's originality as an artistic event does not establish that it caused a psychological transformation in its audience. Nor does an artist's philosophical intention establish that the work accomplishes that intention.
Artistic research gains academic credibility when it clearly distinguishes between what an artwork expresses and what the research can demonstrate. If an artwork is essential to the inquiry, then the knowledge claimed must be supported by the evidence the research provides.
A more defensible position is therefore to recognise that artistic research may produce knowledge through configurations of material, experience, action and interpretation, while requiring the researcher to articulate the significance, conditions and limits of the contribution. This does not diminish the artwork by subordinating it to writing. It protects the research from the equally reductive assumption that aesthetic experience automatically demonstrates scholarly originality.
Practice-led research: Investigating how creative practice works
Both practice-based research and practice-led research make use of creative practice as a means of acquiring knowledge, but the fundamental difference between the two is found in the nature of the contribution made and in the way the creative work supports this contribution. In practice-based research, the creative work forms an essential part of the contribution, and it is therefore necessary to consider both the work itself and the critical analysis associated with it in order to fully understand the research.
Practice-led research aims to develop knowledge about how creative practice works by examining its processes, decisions, conditions and consequences, with creative activities forming part of the method of inquiry. Although the research may produce artworks, its principal contribution lies in the understanding of practice developed through the investigation, which may be communicated through explanations, principles, models or frameworks.
Let us consider a study carried out on the basis of practical work in which a researcher develops a new way of representing architectural space through drawing, the drawings themselves offering visual or spatial possibilities which form part of the contribution in question. In this case, the drawings are required to assess that contribution, while the written analysis explains the drawings' significance, their relationship to earlier work, and the reasons for the claim of originality.
A study involving practical work might focus on the same general topic and examine the effect of various drawing techniques on what a practitioner notices and on the way architectural space is interpreted, achieving this through drawing sessions, reflective records and comparisons of the methods employed. Here, the drawings act as a source for investigation and analysis, the key contribution being an understanding of the relationship between drawing, attention and spatial interpretation.
The issue therefore lies in the part that the creative work plays in making the contribution, not in whether or not the researcher produces artworks, since in both cases there can be a great deal of creative activity and reflection. Moreover, the two approaches can overlap in a single project, and classification should be based on the main research claims and the institution's doctoral framework; in either case, adequate evidence and critical analysis must demonstrate an original contribution beyond what the researcher has gained for themselves.
Donald Schön’s distinction between reflection-in-action, in which practitioners reconsider their understanding while engaged in an activity, and reflection-on-action, through which they step back to examine actions already taken, helps explain how experience and reflection contribute to the development of professional judgement. However, retrospective accounts require critical scrutiny because memory is selective, and knowledge of a favourable outcome may lead researchers to portray earlier decisions as more deliberate and coherent, or their consequences as more foreseeable, than they appeared at the time.
A sound methodology establishes a clear relationship between experience, documentation and interpretation by comparing records made during practice with later reflections, examining unsuccessful decisions alongside successful ones, and exploring alternative interpretations through discussions with other practitioners. In collaborative research, interviews and observation can reveal differences in participants’ experiences and understandings that individual reflection may overlook, although these sources also require critical scrutiny because neither personal records nor participants’ accounts provide a complete or neutral account of the process.
The kinds of methodological approaches that can be used in such studies can be chosen on the basis of the research question, with the assumptions involved being taken into account when the evidence is collected and interpreted. Autoethnography links the analysis of personal experience with the broader social and cultural context and involves more than simply giving an account of an individual's life, whereas phenomenology examines lived experience by means of a well-defined philosophical and methodological approach and goes beyond a simple description of how an experience felt.
Ethnography can illuminate collective artistic practices through sustained engagement with participants, their relationships and the contexts in which they work, while action research can support inquiries organised around cycles of planning, intervention, observation and reflection. In an action research project, the researcher must explain what the intervention seeks to change, why it is appropriate to the problem and how its effects will be assessed, so that the inquiry produces a critically supported understanding of the changes observed rather than merely documenting a sequence of activities.
The choice of methodology should follow from the research problem and the evidence needed to address it, with each approach serving a clearly defined purpose within the overall research design. A study of artistic judgement may draw on several methodological approaches, but simply naming phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory and action research does not establish methodological rigour unless the researcher explains how their aims, procedures and underlying assumptions can be brought into a coherent relationship, including how any tensions between them will be addressed.
There is a major methodological risk involved in considering professional development as a sign of doctoral originality, since an artist might gain greater confidence, improve their technical skills or become more reflective without making a contribution that goes beyond what is already known in the field. Even though such developments are still worthwhile, in the context of a PhD it is essential to show that the contribution from the research investigation can be identified, placed within the relevant body of knowledge, communicated to others and open to critical examination, so that personal learning may form part of a research argument that is defensible rather than acting as the only basis for it.
PhD by publication: When a body of existing work becomes the foundation of doctoral research
The type of doctoral study involved in a PhD by publication is different from that which is practice-based or practice-led, since the former mainly relates to the connection between creative practice and the production of knowledge, while publication-based arrangements deal with the way in which a body of research is put together, submitted and examined. It is therefore possible for a doctorate based on published work to involve research that is practice-based, practice-led or based on other scholarly methods.
Different terms are used by universities when referring to a number of arrangements that have to be distinguished: a retrospective doctorate looks at work which had been substantially completed and disseminated before registration; a prospective publication-based or journal-format thesis includes the research carried out during the doctoral study; and a conventional thesis can contain previously published material without this representing a separate path to the doctorate. It is not a necessity that publication be a requirement for each part of a journal-format thesis, since Manchester's published guidelines allow chapters to be written in a form suitable for publication, even if the material has not been sent to a journal, while UCL has its own rules regarding the inclusion of published work in doctoral theses.
The retrospective route is suitable for experienced artists, writers, designers, curators and academics who already have a sufficient body of research output, on the condition that the institution agrees to accept this kind of work and the portfolio satisfies the requirements set by the institution regarding admission and examination. The intellectual basis for this approach is the idea that significant research can be carried out outside the context of a formal doctoral programme as a result of continuous scholarly or creative activity, the outcomes of which can then be assessed within a doctoral framework.
Such a portfolio nevertheless requires careful critical assessment, since an extensive exhibition history, a large volume of artistic production or considerable public recognition does not, by itself, establish the coherence, originality and research significance required for a doctorate. An artist who has produced hundreds of paintings and exhibited internationally must still explain how the submitted work contributes to knowledge within the field, while a smaller, closely connected body of work may support a substantial doctoral contribution when its research questions, methods and findings are clearly articulated and supported by evidence.
The specific requirements of universities show how these principles are put into practice, even though the details should be regarded as rules set by the institution and not as general features of the qualification. According to guidance obtained in October 2026, the University of the Arts London requires a portfolio consisting of relevant, peer-recognised outputs such as books, articles, exhibitions, performances, designs and digital works, together with a critical commentary of typically 20,000 words which is assessed by means of a viva voce and within which the maximum duration of the programme is two years.
The University of Westminster also requires a coherent body of work which achieves the required standards of quality, seriousness and extent typical of a conventional PhD, but its published programme is part-time and lasts a minimum of twelve and a maximum of twenty-four months. Under its 2026–27 academic regulations, the commentary should normally be 15,000 words, with a permitted variation of ten per cent in either direction, while the publications and associated materials submitted for consideration must be no more than ten years old at the time of application.
Each university’s rules on acceptable research outputs, candidate eligibility, commentary requirements, registration periods and examination procedures determine which portfolios qualify for submission and how their contributions must be demonstrated, so no single publication count, word limit or completion period can be applied to all doctorates by publication. The distinction between an admission route and a thesis format is equally important, because permission to include publications within a conventional thesis does not automatically make a candidate eligible for a retrospective doctorate with a shorter registration period.
A major intellectual difficulty when making a retrospective submission is achieving coherence among projects carried out at various times, under different circumstances, and with different aims, without adopting a unifying theme that is so general as to say very little about the significance of the research. An artist could plausibly refer to exhibitions on migration, ecological change, domestic life and urban architecture as studies of human experience, but this kind of description would still be inadequate unless the accompanying commentary showed the specific links by means of which the works, both on their own and taken together, contribute to an understanding of the subject area.
A more rigorous analysis would identify recurring questions, shifts in concepts and methods, tensions between projects and the findings that emerged across the body of work, explaining how these connections support the research contribution claimed for the portfolio. Such coherence does not require the artist to have begun with a fully developed research plan or for every project to form part of a linear progression, but it does require a defensible interpretation that acknowledges how the work actually developed, including its discontinuities and limitations.
It is also necessary to differentiate between professional recognition and evidence of research quality, as approval by a well-respected curator, positive critical reception or commercial success may indicate significance in a given professional context without proving that the work has been subject to scholarly examination or meets doctoral standards. Although universities may acknowledge a number of different types of external assessment, particularly in the creative fields, candidates are required to explain who carried out the assessment, what criteria were applied and how that assessment supports the research claims, not merely regard public visibility, professional prestige and academic review as equivalent forms of validation.
Since collaborative authorship involves an additional need for clarity, it is necessary to be clear in the case of creative research, as this type of research often progresses through joint efforts carried out with artists, curators, designers, technicians, communities and institutions whose contributions cannot just be included in the candidate's account. The submission must specify the candidate's role in the development of ideas, in carrying out the investigation, in producing the outputs and in interpreting the results, while at the same time recognising the intellectual and practical contributions of the collaborators and providing the relevant evidence where the institution asks for it.
The quality of the available documentation also affects retrospective assessment, since earlier projects may have been incompletely archived and the circumstances surrounding decisions made many years ago may be difficult to reconstruct reliably. A critical analysis must therefore distinguish contemporaneous evidence from later recollections, acknowledge gaps in the record and limit its claims accordingly, allowing new interpretations to emerge while making clear where they depend on inference rather than documented facts.
A shorter registration period is compatible with rigorous doctoral assessment because much of the underlying research has already been completed, although the candidate must still demonstrate that the submitted work meets the institution’s requirements for an original contribution to knowledge. An established career provides a substantial body of work to build this argument, but access to the route depends on institutional eligibility rules, the acceptability of the proposed outputs, the availability of appropriate supervision and the university’s capacity to examine the claimed contribution.
The conventional PhD in art: Researching art without necessarily producing it
The increasing acceptance of practice-based research can give rise to the incorrect idea that a traditional PhD in art is out of date or has only a weak link with artistic practice, even though studies based on historical, theoretical, philosophical and empirical grounds are still necessary for an understanding of art. In this context, the term "conventional" describes research which makes its principal contribution through evidence, analysis and a written argument and does not require the production of an original work of art as part of that contribution. The term does not imply that such research must depend solely on written sources or that it has to exclude creative methods.
A doctorate in this area might investigate how an aesthetic concept developed, how an artistic tradition changed, how institutions shaped cultural values, or how communities understand and use art, with the research methods chosen to suit the question. Depending on the inquiry, these methods could include archival research, visual and material analysis, philosophical argument, historical comparison, interviews or ethnographic observation. Its original contribution might be a new interpretation, a revised historical account or a clearer explanation of a previously overlooked relationship, provided the researcher shows how the findings extend or challenge existing knowledge.
Consider a study of how selected Indian museums and exhibition institutions distinguish between fine art, craft, design, ritual objects and ethnographic material, and how these distinctions affect the value assigned to objects and their makers. The researcher would need to specify the institutions and periods being studied, since these categories can carry different meanings across regions, communities and historical contexts. Historical catalogues, collection policies, curatorial correspondence, exhibition records, and interviews could help explain how classifications developed, whose views shaped them, and how they were challenged or revised.
The research could identify changes in classification, institutional disagreements, or links between aesthetic value and social power, but its conclusions would need to follow from the evidence rather than assumptions made at the outset. Discovering an unfamiliar archive or highlighting an overlooked object would be valuable, but the doctoral contribution would also need to explain how these discoveries extend or challenge existing understanding of art. A practising artist could undertake such a study, but the project would be practice-based only if creative practice and its outputs formed an essential part of the research contribution, rather than simply because the researcher is an artist.
Similarly, a painter writing a philosophical thesis on colour and perception would not automatically be conducting practice-led research just because their painting experience informed the argument. Painting experiments could form part of the research method, but the project’s classification would depend on what those experiments investigate and whether the main contribution develops new understanding of creative practice, considered within the university’s doctoral framework. Since practice-led findings can be presented through a written thesis, the approach cannot be identified simply by whether the final submission contains writing or artworks
A benefit of traditional doctoral research is that the various disciplines have established techniques for examining sources, evaluating evidence and testing arguments, which enables both readers and examiners to see how a conclusion was arrived at. Yet these methods do not ensure that the research is of high quality, as even a huge amount of material or a long list of readings can still back up a poor argument if the question is vague or the evidence is used in a selective way. It is up to the researcher to demonstrate that the methods are appropriate for the problem and that the findings make an original contribution.
The available evidence also has limitations, since archives often preserve the activities of institutions and artists with the resources to document their work, while informal, collective and marginalised practices receive less attention. Research that accepts these records without examining how they were created and preserved may reproduce earlier exclusions, while an account based mainly on written sources may overlook the importance of materials, bodily experience, performance and duration. Addressing these limitations requires methods that can draw on a wider range of evidence and experience, allowing historical and theoretical inquiry to develop a fuller understanding of the practices being studied.
A historical investigation could therefore combine documents, oral histories, visual evidence and material examination, while recognising that memories can be selective and that objects need to be interpreted within their historical and cultural contexts. Similarly, a philosophical study could examine how an artwork’s materials, setting, and duration shape the experience it offers, letting that encounter inform or challenge the argument rather than merely illustrate an existing theory. Making or reconstructing an object could also help test an interpretation, provided the researcher explains what the process reveals and which aspects of the original work or experience it cannot recover.
Such inquiry can also benefit from artistic expertise, since a printmaker may identify technical choices that written records leave unexplained, while a filmmaker may recognise relationships between shots, sound and timing that someone less familiar with the medium might overlook. Practical experience strengthens the analysis when the researcher explains how it informs the interpretation, checks it against other evidence and remains open to alternative explanations. Its use does not automatically make a project practice-based, since that distinction depends on whether creative practice and its outputs form an essential part of the original research contribution. Both approaches require clear questions, suitable evidence and findings that others can understand and critically examine.
The methodological question: What makes an artistic investigation rigorous?
These distinctions between doctoral approaches lead to a question that applies to all of them: how can the researcher show that the methods used are capable of supporting the contribution claimed? Discussions of artistic research sometimes defend creative freedom without explaining how the inquiry will meet this requirement, either by arguing that the distinctive nature of artistic practice places it beyond expectations of evidence and critical justification or by requiring it to follow experimental procedures that do not suit its questions. Neither position adequately addresses the problem, since artistic research needs methods that respect the practice's character while allowing others to examine how it reached its conclusions.
Methodology provides a reasoned explanation of how an investigation is designed and conducted, why particular methods have been chosen and how the resulting evidence will support the research claims. It also explains the assumptions and limitations of those methods, including how the researcher will respond when the inquiry develops in an unexpected direction, since a systematic investigation can accommodate changes without treating every decision as an unexamined matter of artistic intuition.
A study of the chemical behaviour of ceramic glazes may require controlled material experiments and laboratory analysis. At the same time, investigating performers’ experiences in a particular architectural space may draw on observation, interviews, or a carefully developed phenomenological approach. Research into the exclusion of an artistic tradition may depend on archival investigation and a critical examination of how institutional records were produced. In contrast, an inquiry into compositional possibilities through drawing may use successive artistic experiments, comparative analysis and reflective documentation. These choices follow from the questions being asked, but naming a recognised method does not establish rigour unless the researcher explains how they used it and why it is suitable.
A useful starting point is therefore to distinguish the activities undertaken from the claims they can support, since producing artistic work does not automatically justify every interpretation attached to it. For example, creating three curatorial installations may help the researcher examine how different arrangements change the spatial relationships among objects, provided the researcher clearly explains the process of developing and comparing those installations, but the installations alone cannot establish how visitors understand those arrangements. Claims about visitors’ responses require evidence from the visitors themselves, while any attempt to extend the findings to a wider population must explain how participants were selected, whom they represent and the limits of that extension.
An artist’s journal may record decisions and their meaning without accounting for every influence on the creative process, since the same caution applies to reflective and historical sources. At the same time, an institutional document may establish that a particular classification was adopted without showing how visitors interpreted it. Each source gives access to some aspects of the inquiry while leaving others uncertain, and methodological clarity depends on recognising those limits rather than asking the evidence to support more than it can establish.
This also clarifies the relationship between documentation and evidence, which overlap rather than separate: documentation preserves traces of an activity. In contrast, those traces become evidence when researchers critically examine them to support a particular claim. The value of a photograph, recording or studio note therefore depends on what it records, how it was produced, what it leaves out and how it relates to the question under investigation.
A series of studio photographs can record a sculpture's development and help the researcher examine changes in its form or spatial arrangement, provided the comparison accounts for differences in camera position, lighting, and image selection. However, the photographs alone cannot establish how viewers experienced the sculpture or whether its form was historically original, since the former requires evidence of viewers’ responses and the latter requires a critical comparison with relevant artistic precedents.
A convincing doctoral study clearly connects its research questions, activities, documentation, analysis and conclusions, showing how the evidence supports its interpretations and where uncertainty remains. The researcher should consider alternative explanations, examine evidence that challenges the developing argument and explain significant changes in direction, so that the final account reflects how the investigation unfolded rather than presenting every outcome as confirmation of an argument established at the outset.
Unsuccessful artistic experiments can be particularly useful in this process because an abandoned drawing, failed material test, or rejected installation may expose assumptions hidden in the final work. Their research value depends on explaining what was attempted, what counted as failure and what the result made it possible to understand, since an aesthetically disappointing outcome may still be informative, while an unexplained failure contributes little merely because it has been recorded.
The researcher need not preserve every discarded attempt or construct an account of uninterrupted progress, but should retain and examine those decisions and outcomes that materially shaped the investigation. A doctoral submission gains strength when it explains the uncertainties, revisions and unresolved problems through which its contribution developed, rather than turning the research into a retrospective celebration of successful artworks.
The same need for careful explanation applies to originality, since a distinctive artistic language, unusual material treatment or departure from convention may be significant within artistic practice without necessarily establishing an original contribution at doctoral level. Artistic and research originality can coincide, but the candidate must explain what the work adds to existing knowledge or understanding and show how that contribution arises from the investigation.
A new artistic technique may contribute to research by revealing previously unrecognised material possibilities, developing a useful method or changing how a particular practice is understood. At the same time, an unconventional exhibition may establish new insights into classification, spatial organisation or interpretation. Such contributions may depend on the artwork itself and need not be reduced to a general rule, but novelty of appearance alone cannot establish their doctoral significance.
Conversely, an original research contribution need not involve an unprecedented artwork, since a project may develop a new interpretation of an existing practice, identify a previously overlooked relationship among creative processes or revise an established account of an artistic tradition. The relevant question is what the investigation enables others to understand that was not adequately understood before, with the scope of that contribution stated precisely enough to be examined.
Establishing this requires familiarity with relevant scholarship and artistic precedents, because the researcher may discover something already well understood within the field. A contextual review should therefore examine sources appropriate to the question, including books and journal articles alongside exhibitions, films, performances, design projects, catalogues, technical practices, and other forms of recorded or transmitted knowledge.
These materials need to be analysed rather than assembled as a collection of influences, with attention to the questions they addressed, the knowledge they established and the limitations or disagreements that remain. Where relevant practices are poorly documented, the researcher should acknowledge that difficulty and seek suitable ways to investigate them, rather than assuming that their absence from published scholarship proves the proposed contribution is new.
Questions of originality also raise questions about whether another researcher could examine, test, or build on the findings. However, this does not mean that every artistic event must be repeated exactly. A performance may depend on particular participants, a temporary setting, or circumstances that cannot be recreated. Still, that uniqueness does not remove the need to explain how it supports the research contribution.
The OECD’s Frascati Manual identifies transferability and/or reproducibility among its research and development criteria, emphasising the recording and communication of knowledge so other researchers can use it. However, the manual provides a framework for collecting and reporting research statistics rather than a complete standard for examining artistic doctorates, and its criteria should not be interpreted as requiring the identical recreation of every artwork or historical encounter.
It helps to distinguish recreating an artistic event, reproducing an analysis from available records, and testing a finding through further investigation, since these activities address different questions and may be possible to different degrees. Another researcher might be unable to reproduce the original experience of a temporary performance, yet still examine its documentation, assess the interpretation, question the decisions made or explore whether related findings emerge under comparable conditions.
Documentation offers only a partial account of an event, so the researcher must explain what it captures and which aspects of bodily experience, atmosphere or interaction remain unrecorded. When the research contribution depends on these aspects, the researcher must support the claims with additional evidence or limit them to what the available material can establish, since a recording cannot preserve the experience in its entirety.
Clear records of decisions, well-explained methods, sufficient contextual information, and openness to criticism help others assess artistic research, but a thorough documentation process may still yield conclusions based on weak evidence or unsupported interpretations. For example, a claim that an installation changes behaviour or improves memory requires methods that can assess the claimed effect and consider alternative explanations, with the choice of experimental, observational or other approaches determined by what the researcher seeks to establish.
Methodological rigour therefore requires the researcher to explain how the investigation addresses the research question, how the evidence supports the contribution claimed and where uncertainties or limitations remain. Within this process, creative freedom allows unexpected possibilities to emerge, while critical analysis helps establish what they add to existing knowledge and how others can examine, question or build on that understanding.
The researcher’s position: Subjectivity, reflexivity and scholarly accountability:
The link between evidence and interpretation also depends on the researcher’s role, especially when the artist studying a creative process is the same person who creates, shapes, and judges the work. Being so involved gives the researcher insight into practical choices and changes that an outsider might miss, but it does not mean they have full or direct knowledge of the process.
Because of this, practitioner-researchers must consider how their involvement shapes both the evidence they choose and how they interpret it. Artistic intentions can easily become the lens through which they explain all results. For example, a failed project might later be described as a necessary step, a practical decision might be given a theoretical reason after the fact, and criticism may be downplayed if it does not fit the researcher’s view.
These risks do not invalidate first-person artistic research, but they do make reflexivity essential to strong research methods. Along with documentation, critical analysis, and consideration of other viewpoints, reflexivity means closely examining how the researcher’s position, beliefs, interests, and actions affect the study. It requires focusing on specific choices and their effects, not just admitting that the research is subjective.
A good reflexive account could show how a prior commitment shaped the choice of objects, which responses the researcher initially saw as important, how the researcher’s role influenced whether others felt comfortable disagreeing, and what evidence led the researcher to change the argument. While this does not remove the researcher’s influence, it clarifies the process and helps others judge whether the interpretation is well supported.
For example, imagine a curator studying how discarded objects gain aesthetic value, starting from the belief that museums tend to favour certain objects, artists, or types of recognition. This belief can guide the research, but researchers should test it with clear examples of institutions, practices, and evidence, rather than using the exhibition to prove the belief.
The research might show that visitors still use familiar ways of ranking objects, even when the display changes. Some objects may get more attention because they link to well-known artistic traditions, or different groups may see the same display very differently. To support these findings, the researcher needs evidence of how visitors responded and a clear explanation of how they collected and interpreted this information, since the curator’s views alone do not show what the exhibition meant to others.
These results could challenge the idea that showing discarded objects always expands what is seen as valuable art, especially if the display highlights some objects but still leaves others out. They might also make the researcher rethink what it means to make art appreciation more democratic, whose opinions matter in judging the project, and whether more attention to an object really changes how its maker or original context is valued.
If the research results run counter to the curator's expectations, they can strengthen the study by clarifying how curatorial decisions, cultural meanings, and audience views are interconnected. Artistic research is more credible when it clearly separates what the artist wanted, what the evidence shows, and what remains unclear, and when it allows the argument to change if the work does not fully support the original claims.
The written thesis and the limits of language
The researcher’s responsibility to explain and justify the inquiry brings writing into focus, especially when the doctoral contribution depends on artistic work whose material, perceptual, or experiential qualities cannot be fully conveyed through prose. In a submission presented mainly as a written thesis, the argument and analysis are communicated primarily through writing. However, images, objects, recordings or creative experiments may remain essential to the investigation. In practice-based research, the original contribution depends on creative practice and its outputs, and the relationship between these and documentation and critical writing must be made clear; this relationship cannot be determined simply by comparing the amount of writing with the volume of artistic work.
The distinction therefore concerns how the research contribution is established, rather than a division between inquiry conducted through words and inquiry conducted through artworks, since writing and making can both participate in the development of knowledge. Where the submission includes creative work as an essential part of its contribution, the candidate should explain what each component contributes and how they support one another, while meeting the relevant institutional requirements. The Royal College of Art’s 2026–27 regulations, for example, require the textual and practical elements of its PhD by Practice to be conceived as a whole, with both meeting the required doctoral standard. However, this institutional model should not be treated as a universal submission format.
Difficulties arise when one component is expected to establish everything that the combined submission is intended to demonstrate, because requiring the writing to make the entire contribution independently may leave the artwork functioning mainly as illustration. In contrast, a merely descriptive commentary may leave essential research claims unsupported. This does not mean that every claim must be demonstrated separately in both forms. Still, the candidate must explain their relationship clearly enough for examiners to assess the contribution and the evidence on which it depends.
Creative work can enable investigations of materials, space, time and perception that writing can describe without reproducing the experience through which those relationships are explored, while writing can define the research problem, establish its context, explain methodological choices and examine alternative interpretations. These functions may overlap, since writing can be a form of creative inquiry and artworks can develop conceptual arguments. Still, neither medium's limits remove the need to explain what the investigation contributes and how the claim is supported.
The written component, sometimes called an exegesis or critical commentary, should therefore develop an argument about the inquiry rather than attempt to translate every aspect of the artwork into words. It should explain the work’s research role and acknowledge uncertainty, while distinguishing the artist’s account of the investigation from the wider meanings that audiences may find in the work. The possibility of different interpretations does not make all accounts equally well supported, nor does it exempt factual claims about the process, participants or outcomes from critical examination.
This relationship should guide the thesis structure, since an introduction followed by a contextual review, methodology, analysis, and conclusion may suit some projects. In contrast, others may be more clearly organised around connected artistic investigations, conceptual problems or stages in the inquiry’s development. Subject to institutional regulations, the structure should enable readers to follow the argument and locate the questions, methods, evidence, contribution and limitations, even when these functions are addressed across several chapters.
Word counts specify the required length of a submission but do not establish its quality, so a shorter written component accompanying an essential creative contribution should be assessed against the requirements of that route and the strength of the submission as a whole. Similarly, a creative portfolio's size cannot compensate for an unsupported research argument, because examiners must be able to identify the contribution, understand how the inquiry establishes it, and assess its significance within the relevant field.
Examination and the relationship between artistic and research quality
These questions become especially important during examination, when examiners must assess the contribution made through artistic practice without equating doctoral achievement with aesthetic appeal, technical skill, or professional recognition. Artistic merit and research merit may be closely related. Still, an accomplished artwork does not automatically establish an original contribution to knowledge. At the same time, a work that is formally simple or deliberately unresolved may play an essential role in a substantial investigation.
In a practice-based doctorate, the quality of artistic decisions and outcomes matters because they help establish the contribution. Still, assessors must judge these qualities in relation to the research aims and disciplinary context. A project investigating uncertainty, disruption or failure may challenge conventional expectations of finish or coherence. Still, the candidate must explain how these characteristics serve the inquiry and what understanding they enable, rather than treating the stated interest in failure as sufficient justification for an underdeveloped investigation.
Examiners should consider how the work addresses the research problem, how its development has been investigated and whether the submission supports the interpretation offered, using disciplinary knowledge and reasoned judgement rather than personal preference alone. An experimental installation need not conform to an examiner’s preferred artistic language, although departing from familiar conventions does not itself establish research originality. The assessment must explain the relationship between the qualities of the work and the contribution claimed, rather than assuming that artistic and research merit are either interchangeable or entirely separate.
The wider assessment should examine the originality and significance of the contribution, the suitability and execution of the methods, the depth of contextual and critical engagement, and the relationship between the creative work and the research argument. It should also consider the candidate’s capacity for independent judgement through their ability to explain decisions, recognise limitations and distinguish their contribution from the work of others, with the institution’s doctoral criteria providing the framework for the final judgement.
The evidence required should follow the particular claims being made, so research into experimental performance need not adopt the methods of experimental psychology merely because both concern human experience. If the researcher claims that a performance improves memory or causes a specific psychological effect, however, the study must use methods capable of assessing that effect and considering alternative explanations, since reports of an experience and evidence of a causal effect support different kinds of conclusions. The artistic character of the wider inquiry does not remove these evidential responsibilities.
The examining team must collectively possess the expertise needed to assess the submission’s artistic practices, methods and conceptual arguments, since reputation within one discipline does not establish competence across every aspect of an interdisciplinary project. The team must also meet relevant institutional requirements for independence, conflicts of interest, and examination experience; the Royal College of Art’s examiner guidance, for instance, considers the team's overall composition when seeking appropriately qualified, experienced, and independent examiners.
When the examination includes a viva voce, the discussion lets examiners explore how the inquiry developed, the choice of method, which alternatives were considered, and how the findings relate to existing knowledge. It can help establish the candidate’s understanding of and contribution to the research, while remaining grounded in the submitted work, with any gaps or required revisions addressed through the institution’s examination procedures.
A fair viva allows the candidate to clarify and defend the research. At the same time, examiners assess the substance of the responses against the relevant doctoral criteria rather than treating confidence, fluency or professional standing as evidence of intellectual achievement. The award should recognise the contribution demonstrated through the submission and examination, with judgements explained through the research itself rather than inferred from commercial success, critical reputation or institutional prestige.
Research ethics, collaboration and the politics of artistic knowledge
The responsibility to justify a contribution also extends to the relationships through which it is produced, particularly when people and communities contribute their experiences, histories or cultural knowledge to artistic research. Decisions about photographing participants, recording interviews, organising performances, or exhibiting contributed material affect how people are represented and what control they retain over the use of their words, images, and knowledge, so ethical considerations must inform both the inquiry's design and its conduct as the project develops.
Because agreeing to join a workshop does not necessarily grant permission for public exhibition, online publication, or future reuse, researchers should explain what participation involves, how participants’ contributions relate to the project, and what choices they retain over their use. Participants should also understand any practical limits on withdrawing material once it enters public circulation, while researchers must distinguish confidentiality, which concerns how information is protected and shared, from anonymity, which concerns whether participants can be identified, and avoid promises that the artistic form or context makes impossible to fulfil.
These responsibilities require attention to power, because participants may feel pressured to agree when the researcher is also their teacher, employer, curator or a source of professional opportunity. Researchers should consider whether people can decline or reconsider participation without adverse consequences, rather than treating a signed form as sufficient proof of a free choice. They should remain attentive to changes in participants’ understanding or willingness as the work develops. UAL’s Ethics for Making approaches consent similarly through trust, relationships, and attention to contributors’ responses. [3]
Ownership, credit and permission to use a collaborative work must be distinguished, since participation alone does not settle these questions and an acknowledgement does not itself grant permission to publish or exhibit someone’s contribution. Appropriate agreements should clarify rights, responsibilities and intended uses in light of applicable law and institutional requirements, while giving substantial intellectual contributions recognition that accurately reflects their role in the research.
Research involving Indigenous knowledge or other cultural practices requires particular care where communities collectively safeguard knowledge or set conditions on access and use, because an individual’s willingness to share material does not necessarily mean they can authorise its recording, adaptation or publication. Researchers should establish whose permission is required for the particular material, what conditions apply and whether those permissions cover each intended use, including any new use proposed as the inquiry develops.
This involves understanding how authority operates in the relevant setting without assuming that one representative speaks for every member or that community views are uniform. Permission to observe a practice may not extend to photographing it, incorporating its imagery into an artwork or depositing a recording in a publicly accessible repository, so the researcher should discuss these uses before collecting material and revisit the arrangements when necessary. Where restrictions affect examination or public access, establish suitable arrangements with the relevant knowledge holders and the university, without promising disclosure beyond the permissions granted.
Collective permission and individual consent serve related but distinct purposes, because community approval does not oblige an individual to participate. In contrast, individual consent may not authorise the use of collectively held knowledge. The AIATSIS Code, developed specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research in Australia, requires collective consent where shared rights, interests or knowledge are involved while maintaining individual consent requirements, and also addresses circumstances in which consent for secondary data cannot practicably be obtained. It provides a contextual example rather than a universal procedure, so researchers elsewhere must establish the protocols, ethical review requirements and other obligations applicable to their projects.
Archival research likewise requires attention to access conditions, privacy and the consequences of reproducing material. However, the requirements for historical or previously collected records cannot simply be assumed to match those for newly recruited participants. The researcher should determine the obligations relevant to the sources and proposed uses, seeking appropriate review where necessary, since lawful access to an archive does not by itself resolve every ethical question about public representation.
Ethical accountability also extends to the conceptual framework through which people’s practices are interpreted, particularly when academic categories shape how their knowledge is described and evaluated. Phenomenology, semiotics or European aesthetic philosophy may offer useful insights. Still, their relevance must be argued in relation to the practice under investigation, with attention to participants’ concepts and disagreements rather than an assumption that any framework provides a complete or culturally neutral account.
Universities shape what receives academic recognition through decisions about acceptable sources, methods, and doctoral contributions, so recognising artistic research also requires examining which forms of knowledge these standards acknowledge and which they exclude or overlook. Standards should support critical, fair assessment of community knowledge and scholarly interpretations alike, remain open to revision when they reproduce unjustified exclusions, and retain the requirement that researchers explain and support their claims.
These questions return us to the relationship between collective inquiry and individual doctoral achievement, since knowledge can emerge through shared decisions and practical exchanges that no single researcher can wholly claim. The candidate should acknowledge this process while identifying their role in developing the questions, conducting the investigation and analysing the findings, showing how their contribution meets the doctoral requirements without presenting collaborators’ knowledge and labour as their own.
The use of artificial intelligence introduces new problems of attribution and responsibility when computational systems contribute images, films, sound, code, or writing, because generated material may become part of the creative work, a source of data, or a tool for analysis. Where such use is permitted, the candidate should explain the systems’ role, document significant decisions and make their own intellectual contribution assessable, including how they selected, modified, interpreted or evaluated generated outputs; these activities must support the contribution claimed rather than being treated as sufficient evidence of originality in themselves.
Disclosure alone cannot establish research quality, since the researcher remains responsible for verifying factual claims and sources, examining possible bias and protecting confidential or culturally restricted material. Institutional policies, permissions, licences and legal requirements must be considered in their particular context, because access to a system does not establish entitlement to every proposed use of its inputs or outputs. The UK Research Integrity Office’s Embracing AI with integrity accordingly addresses legal compliance, ethical concerns, the research record, dissemination and the implications for creativity and critical thinking, while presenting its recommendations as guidance rather than a substitute for legal advice.
Across individual, collaborative and technologically assisted practice, scholarly accountability requires an account that others can examine of how the inquiry was conducted, whose knowledge and labour it relied on, and how the evidence supports the candidate’s contribution. An individual doctorate need not imply solitary knowledge production. Still, it must make the researcher’s achievement identifiable without obscuring the people, practices and shared understandings through which that achievement became possible.
The Indian context: Regulatory standards and institutional capacity
In India, scholarly accountability requires particular attention to how doctoral programmes in art and design recognise and assess research conducted through artistic practice, since offering a doctorate does not itself establish the conditions for submitting and examining creative work. The country’s diverse artistic traditions and established educational institutions provide considerable scope for such inquiry. At the same time, each programme’s ability to support it depends on clear regulations, appropriate supervisory and examining expertise, and suitable facilities.
The key regulatory reference is the University Grants Commission (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of PhD Degree) Regulations, 2022, announced on 7 November 2022, which set minimum requirements for institutions within its jurisdiction. These regulations prescribe a minimum duration of three years, including coursework, and an ordinary maximum of six years, with extensions permitted under specified conditions, while requiring at least twelve coursework credits that include research methodology and Research and Publication Ethics. They also set requirements for supervision, progress reviews and examination.
The general requirements do not provide a detailed structure for artistic doctoral research because they do not indicate how a performance, a temporary installation, a film, an exhibition or an interactive environment should function when combined with a written component. Therefore, the lack of specificity should not be interpreted as either an explicit ban or automatic approval of any proposed artistic format; acceptance depends on the academic and regulatory arrangements in place at the institution.
A university offering practice-based doctoral research should clarify what constitutes the thesis, which creative components form part of the submission and how examiners will access and assess them. These arrangements should be established early, particularly when the work is temporary, participatory or tied to a specific site, so that the candidate can plan appropriate documentation and understand what must be available for examination and preserved afterwards.
The institution should also distinguish between a thesis that includes work carried out during doctoral registration and one based on work completed earlier. It cannot be assumed that a short retrospective route offered by another university applies in the case of a programme in India which has a three-year minimum, and any suggested alternative must be based on a clearly defined regulatory basis rather than on the idea that professional experience or previous publications automatically reduce the length of registration.
The same level of precision is needed for publication requirements, since the 2022 regulations do not include the 2016 requirement that PhD candidates publish at least one paper in a refereed journal before submitting their thesis. This change does not mean that each university has abolished its own publication requirements, so candidates must distinguish between the UGC framework and the institutional rules that apply to their registration.
Regulatory interpretation should therefore focus on the institution in question, the candidate's registration arrangements, and any later notifications or amendments, rather than treating a single national document as a complete description of all possible doctoral routes. The appropriate question to ask is whether the specific programme has valid and clearly stated rules concerning the research that is proposed and whether it can implement those rules consistently.
Going beyond regulatory requirements means developing the institution's capabilities, since merely describing a programme as practice-based does not prove it can supervise or examine research carried out through artistic practice. The programme therefore needs supervisors who can link creative investigation with research claims, coursework that accounts for different kinds of evidence, and examiners who can evaluate the relationship between the work and its critical argument.
The same applies to having appropriate studios, workshops, or technical facilities; ethical procedures suitable to the inquiry; and g arrangements for keeping the materials on which the contribution depends. Since a performance recording, a prototype, or an interactive system may require different kinds of documentation and ongoing access, preservation should be planned as an integral part of the research, not left until afterwards as an administrative task.
These distinctions are especially important in design schools, where research may involve products, interfaces, services, communication strategies, participatory systems or speculative proposals, each requiring methods and evidence suited to the questions being investigated. Some projects may call for empirical study of use or performance, while others may develop historical interpretation, formulate arguments, or build understanding through experimental assessments. Assessment criteria reflect the claims made, the contribution claimed, and the evidence needed to support it.
Therefore, classify and assess a project by how the design contributes to the inquiry, since producing a prototype or following a design process alone does not establish practice-based research. Its doctoral value depends on the original understanding it develops, which may be embodied in the design but must be clearly identified and supported. At the same time, the university must provide the supervision, resources and examination arrangements needed to develop, communicate and critically assess that contribution.
Towards a more coherent doctoral model
A doctoral programme in art and design should begin by linking the research problem to the methods, evidence, and submission formats required to investigate it, and, early on, check whether the institution's regulations and resources can accommodate the research proposal. The chosen approach should follow from this connection rather than reflect a preference for a particular label or the assumption that one kind of doctorate has greater intellectual value.
It is appropriate to carry out practice-based research when creative practice and the results of that practice are an essential element of the original contribution. On the other hand, practice-led research is more appropriate when the main contribution lies in how creative practice develops, functions, or leads to an understanding of a subject. These two approaches can overlap, and one should not assign them solely based on the subject matter, since an investigation into artistic decisions, materials, or experience might take different forms depending on the role that practice plays in arriving at its findings.
A retrospective doctorate based on previously published work raises a different issue: instead of following a specific methodology, one submits an already-existing body of research. In cases where an institution provides this option, the work submitted may relate to historical, theoretical, practice-based or practice-led inquiry, as long as the portfolio together with the associated argument satisfies the doctoral requirements. Just as a mainly written thesis can include findings developed through creative practice, the form of the submission should not be taken to mean that the investigation's intellectual approach is different.
The programme must assist candidates in formulating important questions which are well focussed and capable of being investigated, and at the same time offer them the chance to look at relevant scholarly and artistic examples, to question theoretical assumptions and to choose appropriate methods. When creative practice is included in the inquiry, it should be recorded in a manner that aids analysis, with any conclusions being restricted to those that are supported by the evidence and argument produced.
The framework must allow for changes in approach, since encountering different materials, participants, or unforeseen results might reveal flaws in the original question or suggest a different, more useful line of inquiry. Supervision should facilitate these revisions while requiring the candidate to justify them, explain how they affect the methods and evidence, and clarify what connection remains between the earlier work and the contribution currently being made.
Reviews should evaluate this kind of work rather than using the quantity of artworks, prototypes, or publications as a reliable indicator of progress in a doctoral programme. Even twenty paintings could show significant artistic achievement without demonstrating the research's contribution. On the other hand, a small number of carefully examined experiments might lead to an original discovery, so the assessment has to look at how the work has advanced the research and at how the candidate justifies that advance.
The connection between creative work and writing should also be considered early and revisited as the project progresses, so candidates can see what each element must achieve and how their submission as a whole will be assessed. A detailed written thesis can go hand in hand with practice-based research. However, a programme causes problems when it treats creative work as essential to the contribution and then asks for the writing to show that contribution by itself, without having first made clear this expectation.
The planning of the examinations, the required documentation, how collaborative contributions are to be treated, and the conditions relating to ownership, access, and preservation should also be put in place well in advance to guide the research design. Such arrangements affect the kind of work that can reasonably be carried out, especially in projects involving temporary performances, evolving digital systems, restricted cultural material, or participants whose contributions cannot be made publicly available without qualification.
For instance, a programme supporting performance research must have reliable arrangements that let examiners access the relevant work or assess an appropriate record of it, since documentation cannot capture the event as a whole. The programme also requires an examining team whose combined expertise is adequate to assess the artistic practice, methods, and research claims, without assuming that a good reputation within a discipline means someone is competent in every aspect of the submission.
Institutional maturity thus rests on ensuring that the programme's understanding of research is feasible throughout a candidate's studies, achieved through continuous supervision, the provision of suitable resources, and transparent, justifiable assessment and examination procedures. A clear model lets candidates pursue discoveries whose results cannot be determined beforehand, while also showing how these discoveries can form a specific, critically assessable doctoral contribution.
A curatorial inquiry as an illustration of different doctoral approaches
Examining the aesthetic importance of everyday objects that are ignored can show the various ways doctoral methods address a common problem, while also demonstrating why a research approach must be separated from the way the submission is made. Suppose there is an artist-curator who is concerned with the way in which museums and exhibition organisations assign value to objects, whether or not these are ordinary, disposable or culturally insignificant, and also with the way curatorial decisions may reinforce or question such judgements.
A doctorate based on practical work could address this issue by creating exhibitions and installations in which the choice, sorting, and arrangement of ordinary objects are key elements of the research. The candidate could compare displays to examine how objects develop new relationships or associations. Meanwhile, the critical writing would situate the inquiry, describe the methods used, and analyse what the artistic work achieves. However, assertions about how visitors interpret these arrangements must be supported by audience evidence, since curatorial intentions and the existence of an exhibition alone do not show they affected viewers.
A practice-based investigation might use similar exhibitions to examine how curatorial judgement evolves through selection, grouping, and display, drawing on practice records, reflective accounts, and other pertinent evidence. Such an investigation would contribute to understanding curatorial practice, for example, by examining how practical limitations and classification systems shape decisions, even when the resulting exhibitions also have artistic value. This focus could align with a practice-based project; the difference depends on the claimed contribution and the role the creative work plays in supporting it.
A doctorate based mainly on historical and theoretical investigation could examine how certain museums drew distinctions between fine art, craft, design, and ordinary material culture in specific periods and contexts. By means of archival research, visual and material analysis, interviews or other appropriate methods, the candidate could either modify an existing account of the way institutions have classified things or bring to light earlier overlooked disagreements regarding cultural value. The researcher's curatorial expertise could enhance the interpretation. Yet if the researcher uses exhibition-making as a research method, they must explain how it contributes to the inquiry.
A PhD based on published work carried out retrospectively would involve bringing together and examining an existing body of research and could therefore include work that has been carried forward through any of the various approaches, provided that the institution allows it. For an artist-curator with eligible exhibitions, books, essays, or other outputs, the candidate would need to show how the chosen portfolio demonstrates a clear and original contribution, rather than assuming that a long exhibition record or a consistent theme proves the significance of the doctoral work. The critical synthesis would have to explain the relationships between the different outputs, identify the candidate's own contribution, and note any discontinuities or limitations, provided this aligns with the university's requirements.
This example shows that neither the research topic nor the fact that exhibitions are held determines a doctorate's classification, since similar activities can serve different research objectives and a current body of work can be assessed through a separate submission procedure. Papers published in journals can arise from practice-based research, exhibitions can support practice-led inquiry, and professional artistic knowledge can inform historical scholarship; in each case, the applicant must clearly explain how the methods, evidence, and submitted work demonstrate the contribution claimed. These distinctions clarify the relationship while remaining flexible enough to account for inquiries that combine different approaches.
Conclusion: Beyond the separation of artistic practice and academic knowledge
The development of artistic doctoral research has exposed a weakness in the conventional separation between intellectual inquiry and creative practice. Human understanding emerges not only through statements and arguments but also through material engagement, perception, action, experimentation, and their interpretation. Artistic practices can reveal relationships that textual inquiry alone cannot anticipate, and investigating creative processes can contribute significantly to scholarship.
Yet recognising artistic knowledge does not justify treating every creative act as research.
The essential distinction concerns the relationship between artistic activity and a defensible contribution to knowledge. A doctoral investigation must make clear what problem it addresses, how its methods enable that problem to be examined, what evidence supports its interpretations and how its findings relate to existing knowledge.
Practice-based research gives artistic production a constitutive role in this process. Practice-led research develops understanding of creative practice through systematic inquiry. A PhD by published work may establish the cumulative significance of an already existing body of research. A conventional PhD investigates artistic phenomena through scholarly methods appropriate to its questions.
None of these approaches is inherently superior. Their value lies in what they make possible to investigate and how convincingly they establish their contributions.
The more substantial philosophical challenge concerns the relationship between experience and articulation. An artwork can create forms of perception and understanding that verbal explanation cannot fully capture. But a doctorate must still make the significance of its contribution available for critical examination. Artistic experience need not be completely translated into language, yet its role within the research must be sufficiently clear for scholarly judgement.
This requires avoiding two equally problematic positions. The first assumes that legitimate knowledge must ultimately be reducible to conventional written argument. The second assumes that artistic experience is so distinctive that its intellectual claims should remain beyond external assessment.
A mature theory of artistic research cannot accept either position without qualification.
The artwork and the thesis should not be forced into a competition for intellectual authority. They can perform different functions within the same investigation, provided their relationship is coherent, and their contributions can be examined.
This also has wider implications for the university. Recognising artistic research challenges institutions to reconsider how they organise knowledge, who participates in its production, and which forms of expertise are granted scholarly authority. This is particularly significant for traditions in which knowledge is transmitted through making, performance, observation, apprenticeship and collective cultural practice.
However, intellectual inclusion does not require abandoning standards. It is achieved by developing standards adequate to the phenomena under investigation.
For art and design education, the most promising direction is therefore neither wholesale adoption of conventional doctoral methods nor establishing artistic practice as a privileged exception. It is developing research environments that support, question, and evaluate different forms of inquiry with equal seriousness.
The central question is ultimately not whether an artist has made something original, whether a researcher has written an extensive thesis, or whether a practitioner has assembled an impressive portfolio.
It is whether the investigation has established something significant that advances understanding within its field, and whether the candidate can demonstrate how that contribution was produced.
A doctorate in art should neither be a reward for artistic accomplishment nor merely an academic commentary on creative activity. At its strongest, it is a sustained, critically accountable inquiry in which artistic practice and scholarship contribute to new understanding.
References and further reading
This essay's scholarly and regulatory background is based on the following sources. When referring to foundational theories, treat them as significant viewpoints rather than definitions accepted by everyone.
Foundational scholarship:
Barrett, E., & Bolt, B. (Eds.). (2007). Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. I.B. Tauris.
Borgdorff, H. (2006). The Debate on Research in the Arts. Amsterdam School of the Arts.
Borgdorff, H. (2012). The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and Academia. Leiden University Press.
Candy, L. (2006). Practice-Based Research: A Guide. Creativity & Cognition Studios, University of Technology Sydney. Author's research resource.
Candy, L., & Edmonds, E. A. (2018). Practice-based research in the creative arts: Foundations and futures from the front line. Leonardo, 51(1), 63–69.
Frayling, C. (1993/94). Research in Art and Design. Royal College of Art Research Papers, 1(1). Royal College of Art repository.
Nelson, R. (2022). Practice as Research in the Arts (and Beyond): Principles, Processes, Contexts, Achievements. Palgrave Macmillan.
Polanyi, M. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Doubleday.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books.
Smith, H., & Dean, R. T. (Eds.). (2009). Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts. Edinburgh University Press.
Sullivan, G. (2010). Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in Visual Arts (2nd ed.). SAGE.
Doctoral policy and institutional regulations
European League of Institutes of the Arts. (2016). The Florence Principles on the Doctorate in the Arts. Official policy resource.
OECD. (2015). Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development. OECD Publishing. DOI.
RMIT University. Doctor of Philosophy (Art). Official programme details.
University of the Arts London. PhD by Published Work. Official programme details.
University of Westminster. PhD by Published Work. Official programme details.
University of Westminster. Research Degree Handbooks 2026–27—current handbooks, including practice-based PhD and published-work routes.
University Grants Commission. (2022). University Grants Commission (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of PhD Degree) Regulations, 2022. Gazette of India, 7 November 2022. Official regulatory index.
