The "Professional Doctorate"

 

Last summer, a festive kick-off was organised to formally introduce the new Dutch initiative of the “Professional Doctorate pilot Arts + Creative” (PD), which aims to cater to artists who want a third cycle degree but not a PhD.

The Dutch landscape has seen quite a few doctoral trajectories already: docARTES, PhDarts, MERIAN, GRASP, Creator Doctus, and RASL. Grosso modo, those can be categorised into the two types that determine much of the wider (ongoing) third cycle degree debate. When the Bologna Declaration, and the nuances in the subsequent Bergen Meeting, initiated the European doctorate for artists, it left the decision on how to flesh out the degree content to the individual actors. Most have gone for a research degree, which has led to collaborations between arts institutions and universities; others have chosen the option of a performance degree, which compares to the well-known D.M.A. in the US. Both (most often) include a written and artistic component, but the primacy and relation of one vs. the other varies: for the research-degree, the candidate has to show how the findings constitute new knowledge and how that changes their practice, while the performance-degree is less dependent on the verbalisation. As much as there are nuances to be found within each of the degree types as offered by institutions, there are also different visions on how they compare, and what exactly (ought to) constitute research. (More on this here.)

 

The new PD is organised by 15 Dutch arts and design schools, including those who had their own non-PhD program, in the list above, as well as some – e.g. the Amsterdam Hogeschool der Kunsten – who already participate in one of the PhD programs. So the PD is a matter of consolidation as much as a new initiative, countering a hitherto confusingly splintered and unevenly successful landscape.

Of the Dutch programmes listed above, the first four lead to a PhD. Creator Doctus doesn’t (not even a written dissertation is required), and I assume RASL didn’t either – the latter’s webpage has disappeared, probably because it is now part of the PD consortium. As the Creator Doctus program does not accept any applications anymore, I gather that is for the same reason. In any case, Creator Doctus resulted in one artist obtaining a “degree”, and another project was started in 2020. GRASP has not seemed to provide information on participants; MERIAN has two candidates in the running, both visual artists. Interestingly, MERIAN stresses that their PhD is “in Maastricht-style artistic research”, reminding us of how the “Brussels model” (cf. here) was thought out and given its own name to seek distinction at the level of understanding AR.

Since the kick-off, a “pre-PD program” was set up, but that is now finished. This first month of 2023, the pilot is to have started with “a first cohort of candidates in five domains, including the creative domain”, enabling the schools to appoint 34 candidates in total. At the moment of writing this, no music student has entered the pilot. The matter of who will pay for it is not clearly settled, yet. The Dutch government was asked for some 56 million euros for the entire pilot, but I have been told that the organising schools would have to pay for that out of their existing budget.

The only FAQ on the PD site is about the legal question of the title. Elsewhere, it is stated that the PD “is the equivalent” of the PhD, demonstrating that it is not the same. (See here for some more on this matter.) The PhD degree is protected to the point that the PD will have to introduce a new name for it, and have that certified by the Dutch government. This will take two years, so the organisers expect to legally secure it before the pilot is concluded. Nevertheless, the wording in the FAQ is carefully chosen so as not to jump the gun: the most optimistic phrase is that “the Minister is positive about the development of the PD phase”, meaning the pilot, not necessarily the acceptance by parliament of the new degree. Oddly, it is stated that [my highlighting]: “following and completing a PD trajectory in the pilot phase (and afterwards) can lead to a broader career perspective and career opportunities.”

The hesitant phrasings are understandable from a legal perspective, but my feeling on this whole initiative is more positive. As a PhD holder myself, this might be surprising, especially given my responsibilities as a co-coordinator of an artistic research PhD program. But I have seen how and understand why many musicians decide not to get a PhD. Most of those who enter a PhD program submit a solo project. Some are involved in ensemble work, but their research is steering the group and its workings. So what about orchestra musicians, who may develop innovations for their instrument and/or their repertoire, but who will have to negotiate with the conductor how much of it they may be permitted to apply on stage? Given the inevitable inflation in degrees, in the next decades, all types of musicians may want a third cycle degree to be able to obtain a faculty position at some conservatoire, not necessarily with any interest in reorienting their careers towards doing research as well as performing. Until now, the only route for a musician towards a third cycle degree in The Netherlands was through the docArtes PhD programme. The PD would give musicians a choice. (In the UK, not having a PhD doesn’t seem to deter musicians from entering academia, although a total absence of an academic degree seems to result in issues of clashing cultures - cf. here.) Personally, I don’t think the PhD programmes will loose applicants to the PD, for I have no doubt the research trajectory will continue to inspire and attract musicians. The only downside I imagine at this point, is that we may continue to see confusion between different degrees and programmes that are called PhD or something seemingly close to it, at least for a while yet, until things settle.

The first honorary doctorate in AR

 

The Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg enjoys university status, including degree awarding power at the PhD level. Next to their collaboration with the University of Strasbourg and the Haute école des arts du Rhin, offering a Ph.D in artistic research, the Hochschule has its own “artistic-scientific” Dr. phil. (See here.)

This university status also means that the Hochschule can appoint a doctor honoris causa. On June 15, they have awarded their first to Peter Dejans, director of the Belgian Orpheus Instituut.

Dr.h.c. Peter Dejans

Peter Dejans became director of the Orpheus Instituut in 1996. "With his exceptional artistic and scientific skills, his entrepreneurial spirit, his high standards of quality and his perseverance, he has turned the institute into a world-renowned centre of higher education. For his brilliant and visionary work, the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg is now awarding him the title of doctor honoris causa."

The official ceremony took place in the Wolfgang Hoffmann Saal at the Hochschule, and included a concert (performed by doctoral students of the above mentioned joint program), the laudatio (by the rector of the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, Prof. Dr. Ludwig Holtmeier) and a round table discussion on the topic "Perspectives of artistic research”.

More information can be found here and here.

There seems to be no report on the round table, but I can think of a few perspectives on this very event that are noteworthy. Beyond the qualities of dr.h.c. Dejans, it is the Orpheus Instituut that is implicitly being given credit as well. Even if Dejans - a conductor - never considered himself an artistic researcher, it is nevertheless thanks to his efforts that the institute has spearheaded the artistic research movement and its history. The institute was the first to start a postdoc artistic research group (ORCiM), to initiate the concept of an Artistic Research Festival (since then followed by many), and has seen some 50 musicians obtain a PhD in artistic research through its docARTES program.

From the widest perspective, the symbolic value of this event can hardly be overestimated: it is the first AR honorary doctorate in the world, and it emphasizes Freiburg's choice of the PhD path. While some other institutes in Germany are still undecided about whether to offer a research or a performance degree, Freiburg has made a very clear statement. 

Remembering W.A.Wagenaar and his legacy

 

During the previous doctoral training session of the Orpheus Institute, Willem Albert Wagenaar passed away. I have written about him earlier, but it is fitting to do so again at this sad occasion as his role in the making of the - apparantly - most sought after doctoral trajectory for musicians in the Low Countries has been more decisive than is generally known.

Dutch psychologist Willem Albert Wagenaar (Utrecht, June 30, 1941 – April 27 2011) studied in Utrecht, Leiden and Pennsylvania State University. He has been professor at both Utrecht and Leiden Universities and is seen as a specialist in matters of human memory. As an expert witness he gained international recognition in court cases such as the one against John “Ivan the terrible” Demjanjuk. Wagenaar avidly collected Magic Lanterns – generally accepted to be invented in the 17th century by Christiaan Huygens, another one of Leiden University’s brilliant students – for which passion he had a home theater built, aptly called the “Christiaan Huygens Theater”. (You can see video’s of Wagenaar’s Magic Lantern presentations here and here.)

Wagenaar's Christiaan Huygens Theater

At the turn of the last century, it was Wagenaar who decided to make a phone call that would eventually lead to the bestowing of the PhD title on creative and performance artists at Leiden University. At that time, Wagenaar was Rector Magnificus of Leiden University, which housed no department handling any focus on music. He fostered the grand thought of the creative arts themselves (not just their study from outside of the practice) constituting an integral part of the university’s responsibility towards society and its knowledge. It was Wagenaar who initiated contact with the Royal Conservatory at The Hague and its then director Frans de Ruiter to set the ball rolling and to see how collaboration could be worked out on the practical level, i.e. how students from both types of institutions could benefit from such an integrated approach towards science and artistic practice. During the discussions that ensued, the academic notions of research and doctoral promotion were put on the table, pragmatically followed up in turn by pioneering efforts to envision what a PhD trajectory in artistic research could or should be like. It was eventually decided that this project deserved a faculty of its own, and in 2001 the Faculty for Creative and Performing Arts (for which de Ruiter acted as its dean) officially combined the Royal Conservatoire and Royal Academy of Art (both at The Hague) with Leiden University in an extraordinary education and research program. (It was later renamed as the Academy for Creative and Performing Arts.) 

Wagenaar’s vision departed from the idea that the historical separation between the arts and sciences had been unjust:

It has long been thought that it was possible to make a good, profitable distinction between arts and sciences because it allows to simultaneously draw a line between ability and knowledge. Science concentrates on knowledge; the ability that follows, doesn’t really belong to it and should be taught outside of the university. […] In the arts, then, it would be mostly about ability without knowledge; that’s why we have separate institutions. As such, we take care that knowledge, as produced by the history of music, of art, of literature, is strictly separated from the world of skills, such as needed to sing and paint. But this distinction is not profitable and not real. The boundary between art and science is based on completely absurd notions about delineations between knowledge and ability, and should therefore be abolished.

[From Wagenaar’s inaugural speech at the launch of the Faculty of Creative and

Performing Arts.]

It is interesting that Wagenaar’s demarche was somewhat independent of the EU’s Bologna declaration, in which a bachelor-master-doctorate structure was decided upon for restructuring higher education in the arts. Wagenaar’s ideal superseded this mere three-fold differentiation, wanting to offer different types of merging scientific with artistic education. At the newly established Academy for Creative and Performing Arts, students can combine optional courses from both scientific and artistic institutions, as well as enrolling in new types of masters (e.g. media technology, in collaboration with the faculty of mathematics and physics), in a simultaneous combination of fully-fledged scientific and artistic trajectories, and in an artistic doctoral trajectory, all jointly operated.

The integration of arts and sciences is not unique in the world: especially in the Anglo-Saxon higher education tradition, it is common practice. But on the old continent, Wagenaar’s vision was revolutionary. Since the renaissance, the unity of arts and sciences had eroded, resulting in conservatoires, art academies and universities as separate entities with their own mission concepts and funding. Even in the Low Countries, where artistic research is supported with a surprising sense of unanimity, Wagenaar’s project predates the more loosely-knit Flemish model of university-conservatoire associations, and the real integration of the arts into universities is still less than a worked-out plan.

After his position as rector, and for the rest of his life, Wagenaar closely followed the developments of what he had set in motion. He was a member of the promotion committee of the first promovendus of the Academy for Creative and Performing Arts (yours truly) and continued to be involved in all the artistic research promotions up to and including the last weeks of his life, reading the dissertations and posing his questions during the promotional rituals.

At least in the Low Countries, and potentially elsewhere, Artistic Research owes considerably to this soft-spoken and sweetly kind man with an advanced vision on artistic practice and education.


[UPDATE]

On a Dutch blog remembering Wagenaar, I read more on this fascinating man. Aparently, he received his double first name (Willem Albert) from his two grandfathers. As a kid, he saw the advantage in the two chocolate letters he got from Santa Claus; later on, the double intellectual inheritance - the one grandfather's scientific interests and the other's artistic appreciation - clearly helped shape his vision of an artist's place in the university.

A final anecdote demonstrates how Wagenaar was a creative scientist until the end of his life: getting lost in the woods around his home town, the pressure under his skull made him hear magpie chatter as a trumpet passage in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, develop a panic fear of flowers, of the sent of lilies and jasmine. "My condition leads to completely new experiences that only patients can have! What luck that the cancer is my head. It is much more interesting than in any other body part." In the mean time, a booklet has been made to offer doctors insights and fellow patients support. Wagenaar had become the object of his own study as much as the artistic researcher that he had envisioned would investigate his own experiences for the benefit of scientists and colleague artists.