King¡¯s College London has long had strong links with London¡¯s creative industries.?It was precisely because it played?such a central role in marking the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare¡¯s death that?Gordon McMullan, the director of King's London?Shakespeare Centre, was inspired to begin assembling partners?for the ambitious .

Yet when Deborah Bull joined King¡¯s as assistant principal for culture and engagement four years ago, she discovered that most of their cultural partners ¡°looked a bit like King¡¯s ¨C big, building-based and with something royal in the title¡±.

Although they still work with such institutions, she has actively engaged with organisations that are ¡°more 21st-century, more fleet of foot and, perhaps, project-based¡±. She has also overseen ¡°a huge step change in what we are doing¡± and ensured that ¡°it¡¯s more closely articulated as part of the university strategy¡±.

The fundamental principle, she explains, is that ¡°we are a university, therefore we do excellent research, we do excellent teaching, we engage with the public ¨C and we use arts and culture as a mechanism to deliver those core objectives¡±.

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After a career as one of the leading ballerinas of her generation, Bull spent 11 years at the Royal Opera House as creative director, ROH2, where she describes her responsibilities as ¡°increasing the permeability of the organisation, finding ways for it to engage more effectively with new art forms, new artists and new audiences¡±.

Given that ¡°the issue of public subsidy [for the arts] is very live and very public¡±, she believes that cultural organisations have generally been ¡°a little bit ahead¡± of universities in thinking about access and ways of demonstrating their public value.

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So how does the university¡¯s cultural engagement pan out in practice?

Sometimes an organisation or individual artist working on, say, ageing, privacy or Virginia Woolf will seek help, says Bull, and her team can ¡°broker a collaboration with an expert¡±.? Sometimes third parties such as the All Party Parliamentary Group for Arts, Health and Wellbeing or the need research partners. And sometimes a King¡¯s academic is ¡°looking for an alternative perspective¡± and they can organise ¡°open space sessions¡± or ¡°sandpits¡± to facilitate partnerships with the cultural sector.

The final option is what Bull calls the ¡°meerkat¡± approach, where ¡°you pop your head up and say: ¡®Everyone¡¯s talking about that, but they are not talking to each other. What can we do?¡¯¡±

One strand of the work of Bull¡¯s team is developing ¡°public-facing collaborations with artists to help university-based research reach a broader public¡±.

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But although King¡¯s has an ambitious exhibitions programme in its Inigo Rooms, ¡°outputs¡± from its partnerships with the cultural sector are just as likely to be research papers, proposals for curriculum development or new teaching methods, or even a change in practice within an arts organisation.

A project with the architects Garbers & James called is designed to ¡°test the hypothesis that there may be beneficial learning, social and cultural outcomes for primary-school children and their families when they receive their full-time education in a museum setting, as well as benefits for museums¡±. As the schools and museums are based in Liverpool, South Shields and Tyne and Wear, this represents a deliberate effort by King¡¯s to reach out well beyond London. The main output will be a research paper.

As an example of the wider support that King¡¯s provides to the cultural sector, Bull points to , a digital resource offering ¡°short, accessible summaries of academic research that demonstrate the impacts of arts and culture¡± and ¡°a range of insights to help inform future planning¡±.

So was this the kind of thing that she needed when she was herself working in the sector?

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¡°If you think of my role in engaging new audiences with the Royal Opera House,¡± she replies, ¡°yes, I should have been looking at the research that showed what worked or didn¡¯t. But I couldn¡¯t find it, partly because you get to a [journal] paywall or someone talking about ¡®end values¡¯ ¨C and, unless you¡¯re an academic, it¡¯s very hard to understand those things.¡±

Now, rather than just relying on rapid internet searches, those working in the cultural sector ¡°can go to CultureCase and get all the peer-reviewed published research. So you know that what you are saying is based on evidence.¡±

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matthew.reisz@tesglobal.com