Transart institute Glossary

This glossary is intended to provide you with terms of reference for our programmes, based on our ethos and approach to research and higher learning. 

ACCELERATED MODE

We offer our programmes in Accelerated and Extended modes, rather than as full-time or part-time. Our Accelerated PhD is three years duration; the Extended mode four years. We encourage our postgraduate researchers to complete their degrees in a timely manner, and not to view the PhD as “a life’s work,” but as a succinct, focused and time-limited project which is nonetheless based on creative experimentation and curiosity. There will be other projects following your PhD, and we want our programme to generate the momentum necessary for you to continue with a lifetime of creative practice and research.

ADVISOR

We believe in co-learning as the basis for doctoral study, and so we choose not to use the term supervisor, with its connotations of managerial oversight or policing (see Harney and Moten 2021). Our faculty members are engaged solely to work with you, and not to undertake administrative or managerial duties. They are here to accompany you on your doctoral journey, to offer support as a ‘critical friend,’ and to enable you to negotiate the doctoral process in ways that are appropriate for your project. Each Transart PgR has two advisors, drawn from our faculty network. Your team can include one guest advisor – a specialist in your area of research, from anywhere in the world – who we will engage on your behalf.

CO-LEARNING

We strongly promote doctoral research as higher learning, and we also believe in the emancipatory potential of learning as a social process. Our Advisors work closely with a postgraduate researcher over the three years of their doctoral research project, and our aim is for this to generate new understanding, knowledge and competencies for all those concerned.

CREATIVE PRAXIS

We use the term Creative Praxis to emphasize the process by which a theory or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized. It refers to practical application or doing, rather than just theoretical knowledge, often involving reflective action—the integration of theory with practice. We think of praxis as the entwined process of theory and practice. Our ambition is to enable you to conduct your research in such a way.

DEEP FOCUS MONTHS

During the fourth and final month of each Trimester, our regular programme of Intensives and Advisor meetings end, and  Postgraduate Researchers (PgRs) conduct independent learning. This enables our PgRs to work around other commitments that they may have, to travel, or visit archives and collections, and so on.

EXTENDED MODE

Our programmes are offered in Accelerated and Extended modes. The Extended mode adds one extra academic year to your study;  the Extended mode PhD is undertaken over four, rather than three, years.

HYFLEX

HyFlex (“Hybrid Flexible”) is a model that combines in-person and synchronous online learning. It gives PgRs the freedom to choose how they participate, both in synchronous online intensives and in-person at Nexus Events, or participate exclusively online in degree modules. Advisory meetings and the viva voce can happen in either mode. 

INTENSIVES

During the first year of the programme, we organise monthly online sessions which explore key aspects of the doctoral process. Drawing on our network of research-active faculty members and guests, these take the form of workshops, talks and research group meetings.

LOW-RESIDENCY

Transart Institute has specialised in low-residency PhD and Master’s programmes since 2005. This has suited our graduates, many of whom either have work, or other commitments, which make moving abroad for study impractical. We are able to support you wherever you are through our network of Advisors and online Intensives & Open Window sessions. 

For our  new PhD and MRes, our postgraduate researchers continue to be provided with online support. We strongly believe in the value of meeting in-person, in providing opportunities for you to meet postgraduate researchers from other institutions, and to present your work in whatever way is most appropriate. We are therefore offering optionally in-person sessions at our week long Nexus Events, and the possibility to meet with advisors in person during the year. While these events are entirely optional, we hope that you will see the benefits of taking part in them, especially in your first and second years.

Nexus Bursary Awards

A bursary is a non-repayable financial award given to TT PgRs by the Institute to make attendance at Nexus Events more affordable. Fees apply for outside researchers.

NEXUS EVENTS

Nexus Events is the Transart Institute term used to describe our series of symposia, workshops and excursions designed to bridge the gap between distinct fields and foster transdisciplinary collaboration. Up to three Nexus Events are held per year: one week sessions in which we provide a platform for cross-pollination between Transart Institute PgRs and faculty, and international PgRs,  independent researchers and institutions. Our fall event is an annual symposium. Our winter event is a writing and editing retreat where our PgRs and faculty have focussed time writing together with support from peers and external editors. Our spring gathering is centered around collaborations with other institutions and initiatives.

ONLINE-ONLY

Our programmes are validated as “online-only” meaning that, by default, our Postgraduate Researchers are able to take part in them remotely, and work in a flexible way that suits their particular circumstances and other commitments. We do this by enabling you to have regular contact with Advisors and other PgRs through online meetings and workshops. We supplement this online-only provision with three in-person Nexus Events, held at various locations at regular points throughout each year.

OPEN WINDOW

For the Sundays of our Intensive sessions we invite guest researchers and creative practitioners to present case studies to you, as examples of research and creative praxis in doctoral, wider academic and professional contexts. This online series offers insight into creative and transdisciplinary research, placed in its contemporary context.

PGR

At Transart Institute, if you are enrolled onto our programmes, you are a Postgraduate Researcher (PgR). We prefer this term, rather than student, as we respect your prior learning, experience and expertise in creative, academic or research practice.

PhD BY PUBLICATION/PORTFOLIO

In very exceptional circumstances we can offer access to our PhD programme for creative practitioners who have already produced significant peer-reviewed published or public-facing works. Our validating institution may be able to approve Recognition of Prior Learning if this work is of the highest standard and has the potential to make an original contribution to the field. If you wish to apply for this route, you will need to provide us with between 3 - 5 examples that represent a coherent body of work that has been through peer-review, or an equivalent process of validation – such as journal articles, book chapters, and juried exhibitions or commissions,  undertaken in either academic or professional contexts.

If accepted onto this route, over the course of one year you will write a doctoral thesis which addresses how this peer-reviewed work makes a current and unique contribution to knowledge.

REFLEXIVE PORTFOLIO

Our postgraduate researchers each create and maintain a Reflexive Portfolio throughout their research degree. As the name suggests, this can be a collection of written work, images and so on, that documents and evaluates their learning journey and development as a creative researcher. We encourage our PgRs to adopt the Vitae Researcher Development Framework as a way to track key areas of their development – such as theoretical understanding, creative techniques, project management, career planning, ethics standards, collaborative skills, and engagement with a wider community.

As well as a vehicle for sharing their doctoral process with their Advisors, and as an accessible component of the programme, the portfolio also provides the basis of a resumé on graduation, summarizing the researcher’s knowledge, skills and competences.

We currently use The Research Catalogue (RC) – a non-commercial, collaboration and publishing platform for artistic research – for our online portfolios.

RESEARCHER DEVELOPMENT

At Transart Institute we are committed to enabling you to learn and to develop as a creative researcher. Our ambition is for you to make a significant contribution to your chosen field(s) on graduation, and to continue to do so into the future. Rather than use the term ‘research training’ we prefer Researcher Development to describe the programme of talks and workshops that we provide during your first year with us. These are designed to help you to develop the knowledge, skills, and other competencies that will serve you during the programme and beyond.

SYMPOSIUM

Our five-day symposia  are held in various locations and include optional excursion days on either end.  We hold these annual Nexus Events in September in London. We have previously hosted sessions at arts venues in Berlin, New York, Toronto, Liverpool, Nairobi and Mexico City. Residencies provide opportunities to benefit from in-person interactions with each other, to meet your Advisors and other Transart staff, bond and build sustainable communities, and form collaborations through shared experiences and events, adding a vital additional dimension to your doctoral studies with us.

TRANSART INSTITUTE

Transart Institute is an autonomous higher education institution that partners with EU and UK universities to validate its programmes. We have recently joined Woolf University as a constituent college. Woolf will validate our new PhD programme. We are currently completing a partnership with Liverpool John Moores University School of Art and Design and developing other partnerships to expand opportunities for exchange between our PgRs and faculty, enrich our Nexus Event offerings, and foster further collaboration.

We are an agile, global community dedicated to advanced transdisciplinary creative inquiry. Moving beyond traditional geographic and academic borders, the Institute’s postgraduate educational model—refined over two decades— aims to support extraordinary postgraduate creative research. Developed and run entirely by artists, the Institute offers practice-based postgraduate programmes, generating space for experimentation and thinking, sharing and connecting across fields and sectors. As a researcher-centred institution, Transart Institute intentionally dismantles conventional academic hierarchies to support diverse, individual learning processes. We champion socially engaged, flexible researchers working across disciplines. By valuing experimentation and holistic, hybrid knowledge, the Institute prepares graduates to challenge conventional ways of working and drive transformative change both within and beyond the academy. Transart Institute embraces a HyFlex (“hybrid flexible”), visa-free model with fully online and in-person opportunities for all.

TRANSDISCIPLINARY

Transart Institute, as the name implies, is founded on an interest in how knowledge, skills, and understandings from one discipline can transform those in another (Morton et al. 2015; Tress et al. 2004). As others before us have suggested (e.g. Klein, 2010; Robinson, 2008), we can extend this ambition beyond academic disciplines, to include the transformations and exchange that can occur between non-academic “stakeholders” or communities, and other sectors, so as to address issues and generate research that has broader societal relevance.

TRIMESTER

At Transart Institute we organize our academic year around three 4-month blocks or Trimesters. Intensives sessions, meetings with Advisors, Nexus Events, and assessments take place during the first three months of each Trimester. The fourth and final month is dedicated to independent Deep Focus. This establishes a predictable rhythm to the year, enabling our researchers to predict their workload in advance, and to plan around any other commitments that they have.

VIVA VOCE

The viva voce examination is a signature moment in your doctoral journey. Examiners from within and without Transart Institute ratify your understanding of the contribution you have made to your chosen field(s). The examining panel consists of at least two examiners—one internal faculty member from the Transart Institute (other than your advisors) and one external examiner from outside of Transart Institute or Woolf University. The viva voce  is ordinarily scheduled within two to three months after you have submitted your thesis. Examiners require a minimum of four weeks to read the thesis beforehand. PgRs may elect whether to allow a public audience to attend their defence. See https://woolf.education/documents/academic-handbooks/mt/phd-h-and-ss.pdf for more information.

WOOLF UNIVERSITY

 Founded in 2018, Woolf has pioneered a global, collegiate model that makes world-class education more accessible, recognisable, and transferable. Our innovative approach combines academic rigor with technological innovation, creating educational pathways that transcend traditional boundaries of location and accessibility. See https://woolf.education/about-woolf for more information.