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Proposal for a new cross-school centre within the University of Edinburgh
This proposal seeks to develop the potential and raise the profile of film, photography, performance and related media studies in the University of Edinburgh. The University is already active in these areas. The School of Literature, Languages and Cultures (LLC) runs an MSc in Film Studies, an MSc in Cultural Studies and an MSc Course in European
Theatre. The School of Arts, Culture and Environment (ACE) supports an MSc by
Research in Digital Media and Culture. There are several similarly titled programs, courses and initiatives in the University, including the School of Divinity’s Media and
Theology Project. There is substantial research in film and media arts, including the
AHRC Centre for Research in Intellectual Property and Technology (SCRIPT) based in the
School of Law, and the development, application and analysis of media innovations in the Division of Informatics, ACE, School of Social and Political Science (SPS), and Human
Geography (School of Geosciences). Members of the College of Humanities and Social
Science (Film Studies, Chinese Studies, and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies) have organised or co-organised several high profile film events, including Cinema China,
Diversion and Arab Film Week. The Chinese Section in LLC edits the Journal of Chinese
Cinema, published by Intellect.
1 Edinburgh University Press has started a new book series, Critical Studies in Film, edited by staff from Film Studies.
2
The Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts will provide a focus for these activities and promote screen media, lens media, performance, digital and audio-visual media, and explore the synergies between them. To date there are no schools or academic units in the University that offer the full scope of this proposed centre nor the critical mass of staff to promote film, performance and media arts as a consolidated area of research, learning and knowledge exchange. The proposed cross-school centre will help promote these areas and expose the University’s commitment to film and media arts to a wider audience.
NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) lists film and related media among the 13 key sectors “which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property” (NESTA, 2008 p.1). To painting, architecture, music, publishing and performance arts (well-represented in the University) the NESTA report emphasizes the place of “newer media such as TV, film and software” in the creative sector. Opportunities for development are growing: for example, in
England, the UK Film Council in association with the Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is developing “mixed media centres” to promote film and media arts (BERR, 2008). Scotland is developing similar initiatives.
Scottish Screen is the national screen agency for Scotland with responsibility for developing all aspects of screen culture and industry across the country, and is soon to be combined with the Scottish Arts Council under the banner of Creative Scotland. St
Andrews and Glasgow Universities have commenced a series of conferences under the rubric of the Scottish Consortium for Film and Visual Studies. Similar initiatives are being developed in relation to photography with the proposal for the Hill and Adamson
Photography Centre in the former Royal High School, Calton Hill.
1 Chinese Studies has run important events on documentary film, the Confucius institute researches Chinese media, and the MSc in Chinese Studies focuses on Visual and Cultural Studies.
2 Note also that VARIE is launching a new e-journal this year, Art in Translation.
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Several reports emphasise the need for skills training and include covert criticism of provision in university film and media departments. One of the aims of the proposed
Centre is to foreground both academic scholarship and critical engagement with practice including “the challenges offered by digital technology” (BERR, 2008 p.32), which the
Centre will be well-placed to address.
The AHRC supports film and media-based research under the headings of several review panels, 3 including Visual Arts and Media: practice, history, theory (panel 2), and Music and performing arts (panel 7), and the AHRC database reveals that it has so far funded
111 projects across the UK with “film” or “media” in their title. The AHRC’s Fellowships in the Creative and Performing Arts are relevant to the activities of the proposed Centre.
Opportunities for support are also available from Leverhulme, NESTA, Scottish Arts
Council, and the EU. As a further indication of the importance of the field, the 2008 RAE subpanel O66 assessed Communication, Cultural and Media Studies and provided one of the highest rated assessments in the sector (a GPA of 3.60 for the University of
Leicester). The remit of the Centre of course extends across several panels.
The formation of a centre for consolidating film, performance and media arts within the
University of Edinburgh will provide several key benefits
 enhance research through easier co-operation and contact between staff and postgraduates working across disciplines and across our partner institutions
 enhance opportunities for postgraduate students to interact with wider groupings than their MSc/PhD studies would normally provide
 offer a cross-disciplinary research and training environment for students and cross-disciplinary PhD supervision tailored to the needs of the students
 provide better coordination of expertise, specifically in promoting film,
 performance and media arts at Edinburgh to prospective postgraduate students in
Britain, Europe, Asia, and North America
 provide better pooling of interactions with communities, audiences, industry, and practitioners enhance participation in knowledge transfer within the creative industries sector
 provide strength in garnering external research funding and tapping into national and international initiatives
Such national initiatives include the UK Technology Strategy Board’s launch of a
Knowledge Transfer Network for the creative industries. Centred mainly in England, this initiative is “to help creative businesses access expert knowledge and information by bringing them together with technical experts, suppliers, customers, universities, research and technology organisations and others” (BERR, 2008 p.9). A recent initiative in England to establish a Skillset Screen and Media Academy Network incorporates FE Colleges but also 15 higher education institutions, including
Bournemouth University, Birmingham City University, Central Saint Martins College of
Art and Design, Goldsmiths University of London, the National Film and Television
School and the University of Teesside (p.26). Similar initiatives are developing in
Scotland, such as the Screen Academy Scotland involving Napier University and
Edinburgh College of Art.
3 Note that this configuration of panels will change in 2009.
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The centre will cover a range of studies including theory, cultural impact, aesthetics, policy, reflection and critical practice in the areas of screen, lens, digital and audio-visual media. It will also include the appropriation and application of themes and theories from film and media studies to architecture, urbanism, digital media design, cultural interpretation, literature, philosophy, music and art history and theory as well as visual culture. The following list captures the flavour of the centre’s menu of cross-cutting themes.
History and theory: the history and theory, aesthetics and ethics of film and media arts and the interface with literature, photography and performance arts.
Times and places: geographic spaces, regions of interest and linguistically defined territories; transcultural research and comparative research; national cinemas; European art cinema; cinemas of the East; Scottish cinema; video and media art in Eastern
Europe; Middle-Eastern cinema; Chinese Cinema; media globalization.
Taxonomies and genres: genre and authorship in film and media cultures; art and film
/ film in art; experimental and avant-garde practices; film and theatre; video art; the visual essay; the video essay; video art; religion and film; media, religion and culture; video games; documentary
Media spaces, practices and policies: visual and sound design; the evolution of contemporary film, performance and media arts practices and the impact of new technologies; media architectures; practice-based approaches; media screens; media spaces; digital technologies and textual practices; documentation; media activism; music and film; law and the media; the moving and still image
Key theorists and practitioners have emphasized the diverse scope and relevance of film, performance and media arts, several of whom are visitors to the University: Slavoj
Zizek, pre-eminent philosopher who deploys a theory of film from a psychoanalytic and philosophical angle; David Randall Thom, Academy Award-winning sound designer who innovates and promotes sound as a major design component in Hollywood film; Staff from the Dutch-based centre STEIM (centre for research and development of instruments and tools for performers in the electronic performance arts) promote a range of approaches to combining media arts, interaction, image and sound; Kim
Cascone, composer, software designer and sound theorist, known for his workshops and research into microsound; film sound theorist and composer Michel Chion; and Desmond
Bell involved in practice based-documentary.
The Centre will aim to support the rigorous research of its participants, and be interdisciplinary and accommodating in its scope, and help to set the standard for hybrid cross-disciplinary explorations for film and media studies in the UK.
The Centre will draw on its access to professional expertise and skillset development, though it does not aim to compete with film schools and media departments in the expert preparation of practitioners for established roles in media and film production.
The centre aims to provide a space for considerations of emerging media, media convergence, new forms of critical media practice, new media roles, emerging audiences, regulatory challenges and production processes encouraged by an increasingly media savvy YouTube-Flickr generation: the rich development of theory and criticism in proximity to practice and application.
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The University supports the development of expertise in practice and application in certain areas: the School of Education’s studio unit, the University’s Publicity Unit, digital media production in MScs, web design activity, contacts with practitioners and partners, in particular in its association with Edinburgh College of Art (ECA). The University runs summer courses in documentary film-making and screenwriting, and has access to film and sound archives and libraries. The Centre will support these activities by helping to set the intellectual context of practice. It will also benefit from close association with practice as a mode of research and learning about all aspects of film and media arts.
The University currently offers several (cross-school) taught Masters programmes whose aims, outcomes and flavours fit directly within the remit of the proposed Centre
 MSc in Film Studies (LLC)
 MSc in Cultural Studies (LLC and ACE)
 MSc in Design and Digital Media (ACE)
 MSc in Sound Design (ACE)
 MSc by Research in Digital Media and Culture (ACE)
 MSc in Digital Composition and Performance (ACE)
 MTh in Ethics: Media (Divinity)
Other programmes would be promoted as allied with the Centre, and could be adapted to take advantage of a wider range of course offerings
 MSc in the City (ACE)


MSc in History, Theory and Display (ACE)
MSc in Musical Composition (ACE)
 MSc in Acoustics and Music Technology (ACE)
 MSc in Sound Environments (ACE)


MSc Chinese Studies (LLC)
MSc in Dance Science (Education)
 LLM in Innovation, Technology and the Law (Law)
 LLM in Information Technology Law (Distance Learning, Law)
 LLM in Intellectual Property Law (Distance Learning, Law)
 PhD by Composition (ACE)
PhD by Design (ACE) 
The Centre will facilitate the creation of other programmes currently under consideration
 MSc by Research in Digital Studio Practice
 MSc in the Creative Industries
 MSc in Contemporary Art and Film
 MSc in Film and Theatre
 MSc in Film and Creative Writing
 MSc in Documentary Film Making
 PhD in Cultural Studies by Practice
The Centre will also investigate the feasibility of joint undergraduate programmes, such as an MA (Hons) in Music and Film, and could assist the University in exploring the feasibility of investing in a further suite of undergraduate programmes in the areas of film, performance and media arts, possibly in partnership with ECA and other institutions.
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The Centre will share expertise with several University centres.


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VARIE (Visual Arts Research Institute, Edinburgh)
 IMHSD (Institute for Music in Human and Social Development)
 IASH (Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities)
 SCRIPT (AHRC Centre for Research in Intellectual Property and Technology)
Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World
Confucius Institute
The Centre will enhance its relationship with several centres external to the University.
 Beijing Film Academy
 CRCEES (Center for Russian, Central and East European Studies)
 Scottish Consortium for Film and Visual Studies
 Scottish National Photography Centre
 Scottish Screen (Creative Scotland)
The Centre will provide a vehicle for developing further the relationships between the
University and Edinburgh College of Art, as currently formalized under the Federation
Agreement, the Architectural Alignment Project involving joint teaching with ECA, a joint submission for research pooling (currently under consideration by the SFC), a joint submission to the RAE, the joint MA(Hons) in Fine Art, joint research methods teaching and other initiatives. The Centre will also draw on ECA’s expertise in animation, its involvement in the Screen Academy and the Scottish Documentary Institute. The Centre would also expect to have input to the proposal for new shared estate development, funding for which is currently under consideration by the SFC.
Edinburgh has hosted a number of events on film and media arts themes. The following took place in 2007-8:
 Cinema China, a UK wide film festival (Mark Cousins, one of the artistic directors,
 contributes to the Master’s programme in Film Studies)
Diversions is Edinburgh's first festival of experimental film and video, and took place 8–11 May 2008. It is being followed by monthly screenings at the Film
House, and will be repeated as a Festival in 2009.
 CINET seminar series (running since 2003)
 CLOSE-UP: Film and the Other Arts, Tuesday 10 th June 9-4.15, an interdisciplinary event to scope interest in film studies in the University of
Edinburgh and ECA
 Peacemaking in the World of Film (International Conference, July 2007)
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
 Dialogues festival – new and experimental music/cross-art festival, last held Feb
2007, next planned for Nov 2008 http://www.dialogues-festival.org
 Digital Interactive Symposium at the 2007 Edinburgh Interactive Festival, initiated and organised by Hanna Somerseth, PhD student in Cultural Studies
Soundings quarterly festival of electroacoustic music
Regular series of workshops and presentations from visiting artists on media arts, experimental music and exploratory technology http://sd.caad.ed.ac.uk/event
 SCRIPT interdisciplinary workshop on Film in the Digital Age, Feb 2008, focussing on film funding.
The reputation of the Centre will further draw on a number of current and recent AHRC research projects: Media, Film and Christian Ethics (started 2001, Jolyon Mitchell,
Divinity); The Other Shore: Translation and Music within a Rapprochement (started
2006, Sebnem Susam-Sarajeva, LLC); Inflecting Space, Correlating the attributes of
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18.02.09 Paper 08/RC/10 voice with the character of urban spaces (started 2005, Richard Coyne); and the
European Commission funded project: Asia-Link, a transcultural research collaboration between Edinburgh Göttingen, Beijing and Nanjing (Ella Chmielewska , LLC).
The Centre will consolidate a series of events starting in January 2009, of which the following calendar is indicative.
January-May
January-May
January-May
Screenings of Surrealist films
60 th anniversary of the declaration of human rights screenings at the Scottish Parliament (Nick Higgins)
Words of Light, Eduardo Cadavo, IASH Seminars on theory
January-May
February
April and practice (Laura Marcus)
CINET seminar series (Martine Beugnet)
Screen Anniversary Event, Is Space the Place?: The future of sound design (Martin Parker, Robert Dow, Martine Beugnet,
Annette Davison)
Curated exhibition of photographs, web-based catalogue,
Cold War Neons and Socialist Metropolis (Ella Chmielewska)
Diversions (Kim Knowles, Martine Beugnet) May
June
June
October
October
November
2010
Multimedia Translation, AHRC Translation Research Summer
School (TRSS) (with Manchester and UCL)
Surveillance and Technopolitics (Kriss Raveto)
Closeup Exhibition and talks
Sound and Early Film Exhibition (a workshop as part of
AHRC Beyond Text network)
October-December Complete Video Works of Langlands and Bell, Talbot Rice
Gallery
Dialogues Festival (Martin Parker)
Rethinking Sociology in the Digital Age (Nick Prior)
The new Centre will seek to
 raise the University’s national and international profile as a major centre for research and teaching in screen media, lens media, digital and audio-visual media, performance, and the synergies between them
 increase the number of postgraduates in taught and research programmes of study, encouraging where appropriate interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary study
 coordinate specialist research training for postgraduates
 provide a forum for collaboration within the university for staff and research groups in film, performance and media arts
 provide a platform for such groups to make external research grant bids
 provide a corporate identity which we could promote when visiting other institutions and events held outside of Edinburgh continue to organize workshops, seminars, and conferences, and to develop the 
CINET seminar series to make it a Centre series
 Encourage leading researchers and practitioners to visit the University
 Enhance and develop links with other institution pursuing similar themes
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Management Group
This 8-member group will oversee the direction of the Centre, and will be made up of representatives from each contributing School. The Management Group will meet at least once a semester.
Advisory Group
This 8-member group will draw representation from other institutions, industry, and practice, and will meet at least once a year. It will also include members of the
Management Group.
Chair
The roles of Chair of the Management Group and Chair of the Advisory Group will be met by the same person. Authority for appointing the Chair will lie with the Head of College.
The Chair will also contribute to the role of promoting the Centre’s activities and liaising with external bodies as appropriate.
Director
The Centre will have a Director appointed through consultation amongst relevant staff in
College. Authority for appointing the Director will lie with the Head of College. The
Director will play a key role in the Management and Advisory Groups. It is expected that the role of Director and the Centre will evolve over time, involving coordination and consolidation of activities within its remit, communication with external bodies, coordinating applications for funds, initiating new projects, and gathering consensus about how to advance the University’s contributions to and profile in film, performance and media arts. The Management Group will also consider the appointment of a Deputy
Director and other roles.
Periods of Appointment will be 2-3 years, with the expectation that the roles of Chair and
Director will be rotated amongst the member Schools. Successors will be identified/appointed after consultation with representatives from each of the contributing
Schools within CHSS. Workload compensations will be negotiated with the Heads of the
Schools from which the Chair and Director are appointed.
Secretarial Support
We would seek to use secretarial support from contributing Schools. Assistance with a new website would be provided by the CHSS web team.
The Centre will draw on existing accommodation, equipment and support provision in the participating Schools.
 External funding: the co-ordination of applications for research grants will form an important part of the remit of the Centre. Applications for funding will include
 an agreed contribution to administrative costs of the centre.
Additional income will accrue from the normal attributions to Schools of postgraduate FTEs which will hopefully be increased by the existence the Centre.
Additional fees will further support infrastructure, for example, the MSc programmes in LLC charge a small bench fee of £100 of which 30% is allocated to research events and activities. ACE’s digital MScs charge £800 which contributes to technical infrastructure.
 The Centre would seek seed-funding of 8k for initial promotion and web design and to hold an inaugural event.
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 The Centre will report annually to the Head of College.
 Teaching: student load is already calculated pro rata to each School in accordance with share of teaching load per module
 Research: in terms of the Research Excellence Framework, research students, research grant income, and publications will be credited to the individual units of assessment of the relevant supervisors, principal investigators, and authors
 Review: taught and research postgraduate provision will be reviewed under the appropriate School quinquennial reviews of postgraduate provision;
 Annual Report: prepared by Director for CHSS Head of College.
 This is open ended. Criteria for continuation should be success in raising research profile of Film and Media Arts via seminars, conferences, postgraduate students, and research grant bids.
Membership of the Centre will be open-ended. The following people endorse this proposal and have been involved in its formulation.
Martine Beugnet (LLC)
Charlotte Bosseaux (LLC)
Ella Chmielewska (LLC)
Richard Coyne (ACE)
Rachael Craufurd-Smith (Law)
Annette Davison (ACE) (nominated as Director)
Angela Dimitrakaki (ACE)
Simon Frith (ACE)
Natascha Gentz (LLC)
Trevor Griffiths (HCA)
Martin Hammer (ACE)
Nick Higgins (LLC)
Jane Jacobs (Geoscience)
Smita Kheria (Law)
Eric Laurier (Geoscience)
Brent Macgregor (advisor from ECA)
Nick Prior (SPS)
Ignaz Strebel (P/T Geoscience)
Laura Marcus (LLC) (nominated as Chair of the Management and Advisory Groups)
Jolyon Mitchell (Divinity)
Martin Parker (ACE)
Kamran Rastegar
Kriss Ravetto (LLC)
Alexandra Smith (LLC)
Sebnem Susam-Sarajeva (LLC)
Charlotte Waelde (Law)
Greg Walker (LLC)
Julian Ward (LLC)
Iain Boyd Whyte (ACE)
Richard Williams (ACE)
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References
BERR. 2008. Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
NESTA. 2008. Beyond the creative industries: making policy for the creative economy.
London: NESTA National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.
20 January 2008. The drafting of this document was coordinated by Richard Coyne.
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