Dr Lisa Mooney Smith
Director of Research
Senior Academic in Art, Architecture & Design
Qualifications
BA (Hons) Fine Art (University of Wales)
MPhil (Nottingham)
PhD (Nottingham)
FRSA
Background
I have previously taught at the University’s of Huddersfield and Bradford designing and delivering interdisciplinary practices across the arts, built environment and health. In the late 1990s I worked across the White Rose Consortium to secure collaborative research and practice between arts in the public realm and academia, which involved brokering between universities, public and private commissioning bodies and the Regional Development Agency. In 2001 I went on to co-direct the Humanities & Social Sciences Research Centre at the University of Nottingham, where I helped build a team of support staff to underpin new collaborative practices in research and knowledge transfer. I have recently joined Lincoln after being Associate Dean of Arts for Research and Enterprise at the University of Northampton, where I set up new models of practices for interdisciplinary research and industry collaboration.
I currently sit on the Arts & Humanities Research Council Peer Review College for Knowledge Transfer and Non-HEI Engagement, as well as being actively involved in both national and international networks concerned to raise the impact and profile of the arts and humanities. I regularly lecture and write on the shifts and changes brought about by collaborative research practices in academia and industry, which is reflected in a forthcoming book ‘Knowledge Transfer in Higher Education: Collaboration in the Arts and Humanities’ out shortly with Palgrave Macmillan.
I am also an active Board Director of the New Art Exchange, the first Gallery in the UK set up to support and develop Black and Asian contemporary visual artists. I am also a Director on the Board of the UK Regional Screen Agency, EM Media, supporting the development of film and digital media in the UK and abroad. In both positions I strive to develop a coherent and productive relationship between cultural organisations and academic research and enterprise, ensuring brokerage between the two communities supports the generation of innovative ideas and investment.
Research
My research focuses on a body of material generated over twenty years of close observation of research and knowledge transfer practices in academic institutions. It attempts to contextualise knowledge transfer (hereafter KT) within the arts and humanities environment in particular, as well as situate learning about the reception and adoption of KT with reference to the individual scholar and the organisation in which they operate. Within this context, little has been written explicitly about the character of the arts and humanities, and particularly the historical antecedence of the disciplines and their close relationship to current KT challenges.
My work also addresses the growing interest in KT specific language, the key words that have become landmarks in the extension of the ‘Two Cultures’ debate. In defining some of the parameters by which KT has come to be recognised, I also attempt to signal changes in both the lexicon and landscape in which KT has evolved, suggesting that both the institution and their academic inhabitants play an intrinsic part in this evolution, framed by both the political and scholarly tensions of the time.
In my more recent work there is a distinct shift in emphasis from the early foundations of the KT debate, to its current inflections at a more grass roots level within the academic institution. I frame this shift in the context of the key investor in research within these disciplines and suggest that the Arts and Humanities Research Council is equally challenged to articulate and underpin the adoption of KT and its impacts at the heart of academic practice. In order that we might better animate how these practices are emerging, I have recently observed a number of KT research teams and developed a possible framework for closer observation of KT practices in what we term the ‘Humanities Value Chain’. In focusing on a collection of players connected in the successful pursuit of collaborative research, I attempt to uncover an in-depth perspective of individuals and the way in which organisations might support or hinder their pursuit of KT based research.
The aim in pursuing this field of research is that the culmination of this knowledge might offer a useful framework for considering how KT occurs in arts and humanities led teams, and at the same time how it might act as a possible tool from which KT players and practices might be better observed and supported. In presenting a possible framework for consideration, I suggest that the current preoccupation with impacts might at the same time be better understood by observing more closely the roles researchers play during the collaborative research process.
Recent Papers
Mooney Smith, L. M. (April 2010). A Framework for Knowledge Transfer in the Modern University. Qualitative Research in Management and Organisation Conference, University of New Mexico, US.
Mooney Smith, L. M. (June 2009) India Innovation: Building New Knowledge Transfer Networks. Gujarat State Education, Televised Paper, University of Baroda. India 2009
Mooney Smith, L. M. (2008) Effective Regional Research Collaborations. EMUA Research Development symposium 2008.
Mooney Smith, L. M. (2007) KT on the Peripheries. KTP National Managers Conference, Nottingham.
Mooney Smith, L. M. (2007) Knowledge Transfer Without Widgets and Guise. AHRC REN Annual Conference. AHRC, UK.
Mooney Smith, L. M. (2006) The Art of Partnership. LCACE Conference. London.
Mooney Smith, L. M. (2006) Exchanging Knowledge. AHRC Podium, Issue 4. AHRC, UK.
Mooney Smith, L. M. (2004) Collaboration Across Borders: Building Unique Partnerships in Support of the Creative Industries. Creative Clusters Conference. Brighton.
Links:
Academia.edu - http://ulincoln.academia.edu/LisaMooneySmith/About
LinkedIn profile - http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro