AAD Research Forum: Portfolio Workshop

Jointly hosted by CREATURE and CUBE, this live workshop aimed to support you in the development of a portfolio format research output.

AAD Research Forum is the home for our staff research training for REF2029 Unit of Assessment 32, Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory (UoA 32). Building upon last year’s workshops, CUBE and CREATURE hosted the 2025-26 series of training events in collaboration with the UoA 32 panel.

This practically focused in-person event had two main objectives. The first was to revisit the portfolio template and provide guidance on completing it in a way that supports your practice-based research intentions, while responding to REF2029 criteria. Our approach to the portfolio highlighted the importance of representing your practice in terms that are faithful to its form and content, while emphasising its value as a knowledge contribution.

The second aim was to explore the extent to which the portfolio may support and contextualise practice research outputs. We investigated together how the portfolio format offers the opportunity to optimise the value of our creative practice research as knowledge that can be appreciated and shared. A good portfolio helped others to understand the research process you went through, appreciate its dimensions of rigour and originality, and gain perspective regarding the significance of the work.

We hoped that this event informed the activities of CREATURE and CUBE, our main research centres for Art, Architecture, and Design, and our forthcoming submission to REF2029 in Unit of Assessment (UoA) 32.

The Research Forum series aims to cultivate collegiality, support ECRs (Early Career Researchers) and promote research literacy across all scales of our collective research landscape.

Research-active and interested staff at AAD are advised to attend; colleagues from other schools are also welcome, especially those who may be submitting in UoA 32. So that we can hit the ground running, please bring writing tools, your laptop and/or notebook so that we can work through your specific research outputs into potential portfolios

Organisers

The event was led by Rachal Bradley (UoA32 Panel), supported by Prof. Christian Frost (Head of Research & Knowledge Exchange, AAD) and Dr Jacek Ludwig Scarso. Also involved in supporting the AAD Research Forum are the UoA32 Panel Dr Jane Clossick, Dr Jessica Kelly, Prof. Matthew Barac, and CREATURE Prof. Wessie Ling, and CUBE Dr Bo Tang.