What is a Collaborative Doctoral Award?
Collaborative Doctoral Awards (CDAs) are doctoral studentship projects which are developed by a university based academic working in collaboration with an organisation outside of higher education. They are intended as a way of facilitating collaboration with a diverse range of partners including smaller, regional partners.
CDAs are mutually beneficial; they provide important opportunities for doctoral researchers to gain first-hand experience of work outside a university environment and enhance employment-related skills. CDA projects also encourage and establish links that have long-term benefits for both collaborating partners, such as access to resources and materials, knowledge and expertise that may not otherwise be available and providing social, cultural and economic benefits to wider society.
The Benefits of CDA projects:
They encourage and establish links between organisations.
Provide access to resources and materials, knowledge and expertise that may not otherwise be available.
Build research capacity for organisations.
Can transform business practices and provide innovative skills and approaches for external partners.
Offer opportunities for doctoral researchers to gain first-hand experience of work outside a university environment.
Enhance researchers’ employment-related skills.
Check out our Knowledge Exchange in Practice page to read a variety of CDA case studies.
What Participants Say
CDA Project: University of Essex & John Lewis Partnership Heritage Centre
“[The CDA scholar offered] a fresh pair of eyes combined with academic rigour [for] a piece of work which we did not have the resources to undertake internally but which has high resonance within business. I would recommend this to those looking to build a relationship with academia.”
— Judy Faraday, CDA supervisor (John Lewis Partnership)
CDA Project: University of Essex & John Lewis Partnership Heritage Centre
“CDAs are a fantastic vehicle for collaboration. They add capacity to the partner organisation: a student working closely on a topic of interest and relevance, backed by the expertise of academic supervisors. They create a working relationship of mutual trust from which all kinds of other projects can emerge.”
— Dr Alix Green, CDA supervisor (University of Essex)
CDA Project: University of East Anglia & BBC
“All research is collaborative in some sense; the structure of the CHASE CDA programme makes that collaboration formal, and the access and insight provided create better returns which, in turn, delivers better access and scholarship”
— Sandy Balfour, CDA student (University of East Anglia)
CHASE Collaborative Doctoral Awards
2024
Goldsmiths and Rose Choreographic School/Sadler’s Well – The Four-Plus-Dimensional Materialities of the Choreographic
University of Sussex and Brighton and Hove Museums – Chinese Wallpaper at the Royal Pavilion
University of East Anglia and Living Refugee Archive – Displacement Documented: Refugee Oral Histories and the Making of Community Public History
Goldsmiths and BAC Beatbox Academy – UK Hip Hop Theatre and Participation at the BAC Beatbox Academy
University of Essex and Mercury Theatre – Catalysts for Change and Collaborations in New Writing for the Stage: Theatre Underground
2023
University of Kent and Fulham Palace House and Gardens – The Church and the Plantations: An Examination of the Bishops of London and their Workforces in the Tobacco Colonies, c.1680-1800
Birkbeck and The Foundling Museum – Narratives of Fall: The Archive and Art Collection of the Nineteenth-Century Foundling Hospital
University of East Anglia and Harry Ransom Centre – Doris Lessing’s Archives: Communism, Decolonisation, and Literary Practice
University of Kent and Canterbury Cathedral – Rejecting and Recycling the Past in Reformation Canterbury
Goldsmiths and Kew Gardens – The Palm House and the Plantationecene: Kew’s role in the emergence of the global tropical commodity system and its legacies
SOAS/Birkbeck and Arab and African Research Center, Egypt – Transnational Solidarity, Patronage, and Politicking: Egyptian-South African Relations in the Global Cold War
2022
University of Essex/Kent and Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Historical Inequalities in Commemoration: The Imperial War Graves Commission and the Indian Dead during and following the First World War
Birkbeck and Linnean Society – Black and Indigenous Collectors in the Material and Digital Archive at the Linnean Society of London
University of Kent and Instituto Cubano De Investigación Cultural Juan Marinello (Juan Marinello Cuban Insitute of Cultural Research) – Digital art and its creators in Cuba: Identity, cultural change, and conceptualisations of revolution
Birkbeck and LUX – Dissent Interventions: Artists’ Films & Videos commissioned by Channel 4, 1982-1999
University of Kent and National Youth Jazz Collective (NYJC) – Dissent Interventions: Artists’ Films & Videos commissioned by Channel 4, 1982-1999
SOAS and Lowender Peran – Developing a strategic framework and methodologies for creative engagement with Cornish Intangible Cultural Heritage
2021
University of Sussex and the Charleston Trust – Private: Queer Relations and Politics in Duncan Grant’s Hidden Erotic Drawings
Goldsmiths and Single Homeless Project - Visual Cultures of Care: Co-production in the SHP Archive
University of Kent and Incomindios UK - Indigenous Arts and Environmental Justice (start delayed to October 2022 due to candidate health issues)
SOAS/Birkbeck and Arab and African Research Center, Egypt - Transnational Solidarity, Patronage, and Politicking: Egyptian-South African Relations in the Global Cold War (recruiting for October 2022 start)
University of Kent and Instituto Cubano De Investigación Cultural Juan Marinello (Juan Marinello Cuban Insitute of Cultural Research) - Emerging digital cultures in contemporary Cuba: Narrative, community and identity
SOAS and Institute of Palestine Studies - Beyond the ‘Tragedy of Recognition’: Exploring the Practices of Transnational Recognition
2020
University of Sussex and Towner Art Gallery – Gender in the Towner
University of Kent and the Wellcome Collection – The Culture, Politics and Lived Experience of Health: Zines at Wellcome Collection
University of East Anglia and Norfolk County Council Community and Environmental Services – Norfolk Brekland
University of East Anglia and the British Museum – Continental Influence on English Coinage and Royal Administration in the 12th Century
2019
University of Essex and John Lewis Partnership (JLP) Heritage Centre and Archive – From an Experiment in Industrial Democracy to Driving the Difference: The John Lewis Partnership Co-ownership model 1964 -2014
University of East Anglia and The Language Shop – Language Quality in Maternity
SOAS and Bengali Workers’ Association – Multilingualism in perspective
University of East Anglia and BBC Archive – Poetry Television Broadcasting at the BBC, 1932 to present
Birkbeck and the Wellcome Collection – The Body and the Book
2018
Goldsmiths and the Noise Abatement Society – Liveable Listenable Cities
Goldsmiths and Cinenova – Circling Cinenova
University of East Anglia and the Museum of London – Beautiful Fragments
University of Sussex and Hastings Museum and Art Gallery - Mapping the collections and photography of Annie, Lady Brassey
University of East Anglia and Norfolk Record Office - Literary East Anglia 1680-1830