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Dr Jonathan Vickery

portrait Reader in Cultural Policy Studies

Tel: +44 (0)24 765 23459
Email: J dot P dot Vickery at warwick dot ac dot uk

Office: FAB1.56
School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures (SCAPVC)
Faculty Arts Building
Central Campus
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7HS

About

I have been at Warwick for over 20 years, arriving in 2001 from a Henry Moore post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Essex. My first task was to set up a contemporary art dimension to the History of Art department, then invited to create a succession of international masters degrees in the (then) Centre for Cultural Policy Studies. I have remained invested in developing innovative pedagogies and modules in cultural policy studies and media industries, and am currently reconstructing our original flagship course, the MA in International Cultural Policy and Management – pioneered by the Centre’s first director, Oliver Bennet, in the early 1990s. Oliver is still editor of the field’s number one journal, the IJCP, for which I often act as reviewer, and along with my colleagues we make a regular contribution to the field’s biennial congress – the ICCPR -- sponsored by the journal. I also continue to review for many journals and funding bodies as well as being on the organising committee of many conferences (most notably the Aesthesis Project, with its international conferences in Paris, Krakow, Copenhagen, Bled, among others). I was managing editor of the journal Aesthesis (2006-9), and since 2016 have been managing (and co-Ed in Chief) The Journal of Law, Social Justice and Global Development. I have reviewed for journals and funding bodies, including the British Council, AHRC (Peer Review College member, 2009-16; ESCR College member, 2016-), and various EU and European universities. I have been External Examiner for a number of universities (currently Leeds). I am on the Steering Committee of the Warwick Interdisciplinary Centre for International Development (WICID). I was Director of the CCMPS (2020-2023), and have served on many committees and boards (co-director of the Shanghai City Lab project (2013-15); Chair of the Art of Management and Organization Ltd (2014-2017); the Spon Spun Festival (2017-2020)); I have been a visiting scholar at Poznan, Belgrade and Hildesheim.


For my CV and more detail, see my LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-vickery-ba-ma-phd-5244bb11/

Research interests

My areas of specialisation are:

  • Public culture and public policies for culture (cultural governance)
  • Cultural Rights, Democracy and Political theories of culture
  • Creative Economy and Sustainable Development (local community, urban and global)

I have experience and secondary research interests in:

  • Festivals and Public cultural events
  • Arts organisations, management and strategy
  • Art practice and the public realm
  • Architecture, design and urban planning
  • Photography and film -- art as research

Current research projects

I am currently working on multiple projects. The largest is a preparation for an EU Horizon bid on a decolonial research partnership between Europe, the Middle East and Africa, being run by our Hildesheim friends — where even the preparation is generating research material, which will probably result in a special issue on the decolonisation as a critical problem for cultural policy studies, but hopefully also a panel at the ICCPR 2024 (Warsaw). I am currently editing a book ‘Understanding Cultural Diplomacy’ (with Nick Cull and Stuart MacDonald), and this will involve a podcast series and online symposium in the new year. I am writing a monograph, 'Art, Culture and Global Sustainable Development: a cultural rights approach', to be completed by end of 2024. The Spring of 2024 will also involve some international engagements, currently being arranged.

I am also involved with colleagues on a national collaborative study on ‘Cultural Devolution’, directed by the Culture Commons agency. This will result in a major report in summer of 2024, by which I will have completed the research design for two other smaller-scale projects — one on the future of arts centres in the UK, and one on culture and human rights in the UK cultural sector (with particular reference to the ever-neglected UNESCO Convention of 2005).

I continue my management (as co-Ed-in-Chief) of the Journal of Law, Social Justice and Global Development, currently editing a general issue and a special issue for 2024. This involves chairing a Warwick Journal Editors’ Group, discussing a report I wrote earlier in the year on the development of the Warwick University Press. I am also setting up a ‘Global Research Media Lab’, which allows PhD students to participate in the global public sphere research discourse and the online publication process using the journal.

Teaching

My teaching can be divided into three areas: (i) seminar based teaching, usually interactive and case-based; (ii) field-based, where I have led student groups across cities in the UK, France and Germany; and (iii) civic pedagogy, where my students have partnered with artists and groups in the city, and using engaged methods (cultural mapping, to urban ethnography, ‘curating the city’ and 'photourbanism') I have directed them in curating a number of small public exhibitions on subjects on urban life in Coventry (since the first ‘Kalejdoskop’ in June 2015; then the 'Taste of Life: global food justice' of June 2016; ‘Mobile Creativity Coventry, June 2017; and the final ‘Welcome Home: the immigration story of Coventry’ (June 2019). Some of my experience in this was registered in the special issue Vickery, O’Connor and Gu, eds. ‘Teaching the Cultural and Creative Industries: an International Perspective’, in Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, Vol. 18, No 2/3

I founded three international masters degrees, writing over 20 new modules, and by 2020 supervising over 150 MA dissertations. The Centre was founded through pioneering international masters degrees in the new subject area of culture and creative industries, and it did this from extensive research, recruitment travel, consultation and public seminars and industry stakeholder engagement. My third MA, 'Arts Enterprise and Development', was born out of delegate participation in the UNESCO Hangzhou Congress of 2013, and is thematically constructed around the Hangzhou Declaration on culture and sustainable development. The MA is now led by Dr Lee Martin, who is a pioneer in creativity theory and its role in social change.

Research Supervision

I have recently supervised a number of successful PhD projects, and will currently take students in many areas of cultural policy studies – urban culture and cities; public culture and art institutions; cultural development and local community; global development and creative economy; cultural rights, freedom and democracy.

Recent successful PhD's include Dace Demir’s 'Cultural Policy and the Institutionalisation of Contemporary Art in Latvia' (2020); Nick Chen’s 'Creative Economy and Sustainable Development in Contemporary China' (2020) and Phitchakan Chuangchai, 'Creative Cities in the S.E. ASEAN region' (2020).
I am currently supervising
Younggeon Byun on Cultural Rights and community in South Korea.
Simona Vrabcova (with Maria Barrett) on international cultural relations
Ziling Yang on Creative Clusters in Shanghai
Lukas Enkhjargal on post-Duchamp uses of glass as art media (with Michael Hatt)
And M4C scholars for 2021-22 include
Hannah Griffiths on Cultural Rights and the UK Opera sector (with Maria Barrett)
Ellen Brown on the new urban-cultural landscape of inner city retail in the post-Covid world (with Otto Saumarez Smith)

Administrative roles

  • Currently on leave (2023-24)
  • Warwick Global Research Priority on International Development (GRP-ID) Steering Committee
  • PhD supervision, reviewing etc. new course development; the new Global Research Media project.

Recent Selected Publications

see irregular papers and special issues on the Warwick repository WRAP: https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/view/author_id/7730.html

  • (2018) 'Creativity as Development: discourse, ideology and practice' (2018) in Martin, L. and Wilson, N. eds. (2018) The International Handbook of Creativity at Work (Palgrave).
  • (2018) ‘'Culture, Populism and the Public: New Labour's early policy innovations and a paradigm-creation of a social instrumentalism' in Dragićević Šešić and Vickery, eds. ‘Cultural Populism’, Cultural Policy Yearbook 2017-18 (İletişim Publishing Istanbul).
  • (2018) ‘Aesthetics, Management and the Organisation of Space’ in C. Neesham, S. Segal (eds.), Handbook of Philosophy of Management, (Springer Handbooks in Philosophy): 1-23.
  • (2019) “Urban Cultural Intermediaries: reflections on pedagogy and creativity in the urban economy”, in Vickery, O’Connor and Gu, eds. ‘Teaching the Cultural and Creative Industries: an International Perspective’, in Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, Vol. 18, No 2/3: 197-215.

  • (2020) ‘The Status of the Artist, Cultural Rights, and the 2005 Convention: a tribute to Professor Milena Dragićević Šešić’, Journal of Law, Social Justice and Global Development, Issue 25: 2021: 131-145.

  • (2021) ‘Human Rights and the City of Culture – what role for the global politics of human rights in urban development?’ (co-editors Franco Bianchini and Guy Saez) Cultural Policy Yearbook 2017-18 (İletişim Publishing Istanbul): 29-30.

Qualifications

  • BA History of Art and Architecture (UEA, Norwich): First Class (starred)
  • MA Aesthetics and Visual Arts (University of Essex): Distinction
  • PhD Art History & Theory (University of Essex).

Professional appointments and associations

  • Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Peer Review College member (2010--2013; 2013--2016: second term by invitation); Economic and Social Research Council (ESCR) Peer Review College member (invited -- 2015)
  • International Association of Art Critics (AICA): Nominated 2012.
  • Aesthetics, Creativity, and Organisations Research Network (ACORN): Nominated 2008.
  • Standing Conference on Organisational Symbolism (SCOS): Nominated 2004.
  • International Studies Association (ISA): subscription.
  • Research Assessor, Carnegie Trust for Scottish Universities; Expert Assessor (post-doctoral awards) Irish Research Council; Advisory Board, UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policies and Cultural Diplomacy; Advisory Board, Journal of the Faculty of Arts (Belgrade University of the Arts).

Office hours

I am on research leave for the academic year 2023-24. I am still supervising PhD students and undertaking other activities on campus, and so available for consultation.

Teaching (usual responsibilities)

Culture in Global Sustainable Development (MA in Arts, Enterprise and Development)
MA Open Space sessions
Global Urban Futures (MA Option Module Spring Term)
Major Project (dissertation)
PhD supervision (individual and group)

Connect

LinkedInacademia.edu