Researchers within the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research at the University are committed to making research useful in commercial and cultural projects. Four of the University’s Fellows undertook an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Knowledge Transfer Fellowship to work with commercial and community partner organisations in the music industry to produce new online strategies, media content and inform public policy.
Led by Professor of Radio and Popular Music Studies Tim Wall, the New Strategies for Radio and Music Organisations project worked with 29 industry partners representing a cross-section, largely but not exclusively within Birmingham, of cultural communities and music and media activity over two years, ending in February 2010.
“Online technologies of sound distribution offer creative opportunities to small and regionally based companies and organisations, and along with other cultural strategies, they can serve valuable commercial and social aims,” said Professor Wall. “While the technologies are often accessible, a full appreciation of their use as creative tools is unevenly distributed. Large corporations can often exploit their potential, but smaller companies and community sector organisations often lag behind.”
The work, which included information dissemination, the demonstration of online techniques and development of prototypes for partners, was cited as a model of knowledge transfer best practice by the AHRC and is being used as a case study as part of a project being led by the University of Cambridge to explore interactions between arts and humanities academics and broader society.
Professor Wall was also invited to speak by Research Councils UK at the prestigious Science and Innovation conference in London in June 2010.
Another project has seen University staff working with Un-convention, a grass-roots music organisation, on projects and international events in Europe, India, Columbia and Brazil, in collaboration with the British Council.