With around 4000 students, the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht is one of the largest training institutes for culture and the arts in the Netherlands and Europe. HKU University of the Arts Utrecht offers preparatory courses, Bachelors and Masters degrees and research degrees in design, media, games and interaction, music, fine art, theatre and arts management.
Networks and initiatives
HKU University of the Arts Utrecht is also actively involved in many other arts-based European and international networks and initiatives, such as ELIA (European League of Institutes of the Arts), Paradox The Fine Art European Forum, AEC (Association Européenne des Conservatoires), Cumulus, EARN (European Artistic Research Network), AAAE (Association for Art Administration Educators), ENCATC, Utrecht Network, AEN (Australian-European Network) and MAUI (Mid-American Universities).
Beyond the traditional boundaries
Art offers solutions to the issues facing society. It provides a different perspective on developments within culture, politics, economics, education and science. HKU University of the Arts Utrecht dares to move beyond the traditional boundaries of its own disciplines to other contexts. In doing so, we ensure that our professional practice remains relevant.
Redefining skillsets
Our focus on critically informed creative practices enables us to contribute to developing and shaping meta-cognitive capacities and redefining clusters of skillsets increasingly sought by the work-field. Indeed, our proximity to the work-field allows us to establish and sustain meaningful feedback with the cultural and creative sector, as does our participation in regional Q4 and RIS3 activities.
Alternative form of knowledge production
At HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, the creative process itself is a form of research. It occurs in close collaboration with teaching and the professional field. We see the creative process as an alternative form of knowledge production when developing research questions, methods and outcomes. The research focus lies on making art,
media and design, which allows us to take a fresh look at existing processes, to improve or to revitalise them.
Five research areas
At HKU University of the Arts Utrecht we have identified five research areas. These are frameworks rather than strict boundaries, and so one research study could span two research areas. We strive for cohesion and synergy. The research areas don’t have a fixed organisational structure, but each area is linked to one professorship. These cover Creative Processes and their relationship to Multi-disciplinarity, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Learning, Methodology and Emerging Research Areas.
Ambitions
HKU has been active in co-ordinating and participating in pan-European and international projects across many research and innovation themes with a strong focus on instrumentalising crossover innovation. The opportunities for the cultural & creative Sector within the Horizon Europe programme are more extensive than ever and HKU University of the Arts Utrecht is interested in contributing to strong proposals and projects in this area. This includes helping social sciences & humanities initiatives to become more generative and introducing state of the art co-creative approaches based on artistic intelligence and design for emergence in addressing shared societal challenges.
Projects:
CYANOTYPES
Working together on a toolkit for the cultural and creative industries for their sector, with educational modules to teach the competencies that are the most needed in the professional field.
https://www.hku.nl/en/research-and-innovation/projects-research-and-innovation/cyanotypes
TWIN4RESILIENCE
When a city or neighbourhood gets a digital ‘twin’, both policy makers and citizens can better understand what the spatial planning could look like in the context of the grand societal challenges. HKU is partly responsible for the development of the train-the-trainer programme.
https://www.hku.nl/en/research-and-innovation/projects-research-and-innovation/twin4resilience
CREDEX
European initiative that aims to design, test, and implement a micro-credential framework tailored to the needs of professionals in the Cultural and Creative Industries. HKU is one of the partners.