Research Institute for Media, Art and Design
Director: Professor Alexis Weedon profile...
The Institute exists to support research initiatives in media art and design within the University.
In the recent research assessment exercise half our research was rated world leading or internationally excellent and 95% was judged as being of international significance: see our research assessment website
Research capability funding in media at the University of Bedfordshire supported and developed early career researchers interfacing between the academy, the public services and the arts, and the general public.
Of the 45 staff directly benefiting from Research Capability Funding funding, 19 were new academics who have become research active, 12 of whom came from professional practice.
Combining professional practice with academic research, Ivor Gaber, Professor of Media and Politics was a European Union media monitor and Ukrainian parliamentary elections in 2002 has led Council of Europe seminars in this area and advised British Foreign Office and the Department of International Development. Professor Jon Silverman 25 years the BBC expert on Criminal Justice advises the Home Office, police and prison service on issues and minority ethnic groups in a criminal justice system to international war crimes in companies.
Leading international media analysis Professor Gary Whannel co-ordinates the international journalism and the Olympic Games group and Professor Luke Hockley is one of the key exponents of post-jungian film studies. As a practicing psychotherapist he has a clinical and research specialism in how the experience of watching films can make a positive contribution in personal psychotherapy.
Three researchers entered also have ongoing AHRC Research Council projects this year. These are linked though their interest in new media research.
Helen Bailey is PI on the e-science research project ‘Relocating Choreographic Practice’. She has pioneered the use of virtual research environment using digital media in live performance.
Joanna Callaghan is PI on an AHRC funded practice-led research project entitled ‘Ontological Narratives’. Her artistic practice interrogates cultural responses of new media mobiles to news making.
Professor Alexis Weedon is PI on the AHRC funded project ‘Cross Media Co-Operation in Britain’ which has extended the analysis of international rights management practices and has aided the interpretation of current cross-media trends.
The new media research group supports cross disciplinary research into the social and cultural use of new media technologies. It houses the editorial office of Convergence: the International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. It’s international presence has attracted visiting scholars and practitioners working on new media research and research funding in the field.
Dr Alec Charles, Janey Gordon, Dr Clare Walsh were also entered into the RAE. Dr Charles is a media theorist who bridges the gap between western and eastern European media analysis. Janey Gordon joined the University after a long career in BBC radio and her research into community radio lead a European commission by the BBC World Service Trust. Dr Walsh has published on discourse and gender, and cross-over fiction.
Since 2001 staff have won a total of £1,597,452 from research council funding and grants for applied research.
Research should be supported within all universities if higher education is about developing critical citizenship. Our graduates and postgraduates benefit enormously from the research carried out here and take that understanding with them when they leave.
