Dear Chris, Gavin, Ken

Recently the Portuguese Law about Higher education diplomas was changed 
in order to be adapted to the Bologna Process for the creation of a 
European Higher Education System. This area includes more than 40 
independent states with different, similar and utterly different systems.

In the 2006 Law, the Portuguese Government defined the conditions for 
awarding doctorates very similar to the “classic” PhD that Ken describes.

This year an independent commission hired by OECD visited the country to 
produce a report about Higher Education in Art and Culture.

One of the conclusions was that a key factor to pull up, or push forward 
Higher Education in Art and Culture would be awarding doctorates by 
practice.

Obviously, the past month our government issued an annexe to the Law 
allowing this kind of doctorates.

Since we don’t suffer from the anachronism of calling Philosophy Doctors 
to anyone that conducts research sufficiently according to peers in any 
area (we only call Philosophy Doctor to the ones that achieved it in 
Philosophy Departments or Philosophy programs) we don’t have the anguish 
that devours Ken’s intellectual guts.

We simply call Doctors to people. For instance, I’m a doctor in Visual 
Communication in Architecture, my wife is a doctor in Communication and 
Language specialized in Theory of Culture, my colleague next door Carlos 
is doctor in Production Engineering. (of course that we had to do 
research and a dissertation very similar but nicer to a Anglo-Saxon PhD)

Apart from these curious Latinisms, and since I was interviewed by the 
OECD committee and defended elegantly the importance of awarding 
doctorates by practice, I will give you my arguments:

*“The importance of a specific Doctor of Arts*

- Like the scientific PhD a DA should be sponsored by cultural agents 
interested in the human resources outcome. Institutions like Fundação 
Gulbenkian and Fundação da Colecção Berardo among others, or Television 
Producers and Publishing Companies would more easily be involved in 
financing doctoral students of high artistic abilities.

- The Society expects a creative outcome from the A&C institutions, so 
the higher degree awarded should result from creative artistic work.

- If the publication in refereed journal would be substituted by other 
forms of dissemination and peer approval like exhibitions and 
performances, the general cultural activity would be enhanced.

- Specific Doctors in Arts strengthen the Academic Value of the A&C 
institutions.”

I agree with Ken especially because he runs a Design School in a 
University of Technology, but, I don’t know why there is this resilient 
notion (at least in Latin countries) that Design is part of Art and 
Culture and that design products are cultural goods.

So if the God of Bureaucracy will give us the right to award doctorates 
this year we will consider the possibility of awarding it based on 
project work.

Sorry for the long post,

Soon I’ll write something on how we are planning to structure it.

Cheers from the western shores of Europe,

Eduardo



Ken Friedman escreveu:
> Dear Chris,
>
> The way this question is framed puzzles me. I am not sure what sort of structure a "logic-based structure" is, especially given the fact that there are many kinds of logics. 
>
> For a PhD -- practice-based or classical -- one expects to answer a question, interpret or challenge prior knowledge, or in some way make an original contribution to the knowledge of the field. How else might we do this than through some form of organized inquiry, and how might we present what we develop, discover, or learn other than through some kind of logical structure?
>
> If by "practice-based PhD" one means awarding a PhD for practice, that's an old debate, and there have been many robust contributions on this list, in conference proceedings, and in special journal issues. I'm not going to repeat those argument except to say that I still don't see why one would get a PhD for practice -- one gets an MFA or a DFA or a DDes for creative production. 
>
> If by "practice-based PhD" one means awarding a PhD to a research scholar who problematizes aspects of practice, inquiring into issues related to creative practice and partly using the results of creative practice as evidence for an argument, I don't see how this would be different to awarding a PhD for research into the practice of surgery, law, or pharmacology -- or, for that matter, maths, physics, or chemistry. We undertake a practice, and the results of our practice constitute both the object of inquiry and evidence for the result. The PhD is given for the quality of inquiry and argument.
>
> The inquiry and the argument must be made in words. The practice and the practical result constitute part of the whole, but the whole itself must take some kind of "logic-based structure." At least it must be so unless we actually give a PhD for creative practice itself. If there is a university out there that does this, please let me know. This September, Stendhal Gallery in New York will mount a solo exhibition of my event scores. I suppose there are at least three ways of looking at it. One way might just be that it's art. A second would be to call it a relic of my misspent youth as a Fluxus artist. The third would be to call it "creative practice as research." If someone is giving out doctorates for this kind of thing, I'll be happy to submit evidence of my creative practice for a PhD. 
>
> Yours.
>
> Ken
>
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
> Professor
> Dean
>
> Swinburne Design
> Swinburne University of Technology
> Melbourne, Australia
>
> Telephone +61 3 9214 6755 
> www.swinburne.edu.au/design
>
> --
>
> Chris Kueh wrote:
>
> There have been some discussions on structure for practice based PhD at Curtin University. Many supervisors/lecturers in Design and Art have voiced their concerns over the appropriateness of logic based structure for PhD with creative production component. I am just wondering what are the structures that other universities are having for practice/creative based PhD. Have there been such discussions/arguments at your universities and how did you solve it? What are the main differences between PhD and practice based PhD, in terms of the process and credibility?
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Nenhum virus encontrado nessa mensagem recebida.
> Verificado por AVG - www.avgbrasil.com.br 
> Versao: 8.5.392 / Banco de dados de virus: 270.13.45/2284 - Data de Lancamento: 08/05/09 18:23:00
>
>