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Research and artistic research at the Royal Danish Academy

The Royal Danish Academy conduct research and development at the highest level, and Architecture, Design and Conservation have each been accredited since 2010, while work on artistic practice was evaluated in the School of Architecture as recently as 2012.

“It is our declared objective generally to enhance research and artistic research at the Royal Danish Academy. Partly by increasing the volume of the institution’s research, enhancing the research basis of the education, developing a prestigious PhD school and entering into strategic research partnerships with Danish and international institutions.”
Henrik Oxvig
Head of the PhD School, Royal Danish Academy

The Royal Danish Academy work in accordance with OECD’s definitions of research. That is why you will come across activities in the areas of basic research, applied research and practice-based research.

The Royal Danish Academy is not only obliged to conduct research. Artistic research is also part of Architecture's and Design’s legal basis and is totally central to innovation and the generation of knowledge at the Academy.

The Royal Danish Academy’s knowledge base gives us a unique position among educational and research institutions both in Denmark and abroad. We base our work on three approaches:

Academic research

The Royal Danish Academy’s education is rooted in academic research, which delivers results, making our lives and solutions more intelligent, enlightened and future-proof.

Professional practice

You will encounter professional practice in all our educational programs. We involve our advisors directly in Commercial PhD collaborations and as teachers. We work on projects and the submission of concrete proposals.  The practical dimension, including the submission of proposals, is often integrated into both academic research and artistic research.

Artistic research

Artistic research is the documentation of an artistic process, including documentation of new results and new knowledge gained during the process.

“Artistic research is an integral part of an artistic process, leading to a publicly accessible result and accompanied by consideration of both the process and the presentation of the result.”
The Ministry of Culture
Report on the knowledge base of artistic education (2010/2011)

From academic result to artistic event

In fact, academic research and artistic research are part of a continuum of different ways of generating knowledge and recognition. On one hand, we have the fully documented and reproducible academic result. On the other hand, we have the concrete, time- and place-related event. Between these there are various forms of practice-based research and artistic research.

Practice-based research is academic research involving actions and events, which are not systematic or exactly reproducible, but which nevertheless can help to produce academically recognised results.

Artistic research is in tune with artistic practice, but combined with a set of definition-determined criteria for explicit reflection, documentation and dissemination, which can help to maintain, develop and disseminate knowledge related to artistic processes, events and results.