ARP

I began the search for a topic with a few simple brainstorming sessions to reflect on the work that I have done in my two roles at UAL (role 1 in the IP Education team and role 2 as a lecturer at LCF within the Fashion Business School). My search started by thinking about a current issue that I am facing in my IP role within Careers and Employability which surrounded the lack of patent support available to students at UAL. I began by creating a table to outline what current support is available for students (Figure 1) then moved on to exploring how I might frame an action research project on this topic (Figure 2).  

After the first workshop session of the term facilitated by Rahul and Santanu the main feedback that I received from the tutors and my peers was to ensure that the project was rooted in a social justice issue. Following that workshop, I developed the following: 

Climate justice	Economic inequalities	Inequality of opportunities
The material innovation courses at CSM are leading the way in sustainable material development across different industries. However, their impact is limited without the knowledge and understanding of the importance of patents in their process of growth and investment.	Traditionally the legalities around IP and patent law have only been taught to law and business students, not creative students. Through furthering patent support at CSM we can redress this imbalance of access to information, experts and funding.	Access to funding is a huge benefit to recent graduates looking at starting their own businesses, when it comes to innovative materials and sustainable solutions securing patents unlocks a huge amount more investment for early-stage businesses.

However, following a further tutorial with Rahul I decided to move away from this topic due to difficulties rooting it in a clear social justice issue. I came up with the idea of looking again at a significant issue within both my roles I undertake at UAL which is Sponsored Student Projects.  

This was a topic that could bring together my two roles at UAL. I first considered the issues surrounding Sponsored Student Projects (SSPs) at an LCF Fashion Business School Away Day in early September 2022. A group of staff members shared their experiences of working on an exciting life brief with Flying Tiger Copenhagen and this was used as a case study to present changes to organising SSPs at LCF. September marked a change in organisation and management of SSPs following a UAL-wide review the following year. The Business and Innovation team (B&I) took over management of all LCF SSPs. 

When I was sitting in the Away Day workshop session, I learned that each student was paid only £500 for the designs that they had created for the project, and I couldn’t help but feel like this was an unfairly low sum for the work involved. The students designed the costumes and theme for the collection and there is more information about the collaboration here: https://flyingtiger.com/it/pages/london-college-of-fashion-collab.  

I discussed the new project idea at the next tutorial with Rahul and I decided to stick with this concept and get going on the development. I went back to my reading especially so to McAteer (2013) and reviewed the case study example used in Chapter 3: Getting Started on an Action Research Project which I felt was a similar instance to my experience in changing topic. Even in these early stages I was getting used to a different way of researching away from my more natural ‘scientific’ approach and was reassured by Cook’s (2009) ‘The purpose of mess in action research’ discussing mess as a means to ‘turning towards new constructions of knowing that lead to transformation in practice’.  

 

Reference list:  

• Cook, T. (2009) ‘The purpose of mess in action research: building rigour though a messy turn’, Educational Action Research, 17:2, pp. 277-291. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09650790902914241.
• McAteer, M (2013) Action Research in Education. London: Sage.

I was initially drawn to the definition of action from Dick (2000) who simply outlines ‘a family of research methodologies which pursue action and research outcomes at the same time’. In its essence an approach which supports the improvement of practice.  

In some of the work that I do for LCF I am involved with teaching research methods to MA students which means that a lot of my prior experience is routed in social science research. McAteer (2013) discusses the issue of culturally embedded ‘scientific’ research and the impact that this has on researchers developing ‘problem-posing (rather than problem solving) dialogic practice’ that questions out understanding of complex social situations. It was interesting to begin considering a much more reflective and value-based approach to research. I was drawn to the work of Carr (2006) and Elliott (2000) in considering the philosophical approach and moral nature and purpose of action research in the first instance.  

When beginning to consider what I wanted to research for this project I looked to the framework developed by McNiff and Whitehead (2002) which outlined a way through a research project starting with reviewing current practice:  

1. Identify an aspect that we want to investigate  

2. Imagine a way forward  

3. Try it out, and  

4. Take stock of what happens.  

I was initially drawn to explore a current issue that I have been experiencing in my role at Intellectual Property Educator which was lack of support for students wanting to investigate or register patents. I thought that this action research unit could provide me with the opportunity to explore whether what I considered a gap in our offer was in fact a problem for students and graduates and consider what could be put into place to support this. I began to brainstorm my initial ideas on a Miro board (Figure 1).  

 

Reference list:  

• Carr, W. (2006) ‘Philosophy, methodology and action research’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 40(4): 421–35.  
• Dick, B. (2000) ‘A beginner’s guide to action research’. Available at: http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/guide.html (accessed 20^th December 2022). 
• Elliott, J. (2000) ‘Doing action research, doing philosophy’, Prospero, 6: 82–100. 
• McAteer, M (2013) Action Research in Education. London: Sage.  
• McIntyre, A. (2007) Participatory Action Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.  
• McNiff, J., with Whitehead, J. (2002) Action Research: Principles and Practice. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.