Rock Your Research!

Rock Your Research brings together researchers, artists and citizens to explore new ways of creating, sharing and using knowledge. The project focuses on the role universities can play as open spaces for collaboration, where different forms of knowledge and experience meet.

Collaboration between researchers and artists is already well established in many settings. Rock Your Research takes this further by involving citizens directly in dialogue and co-creation. Through a series of activities, the project is developing and testing methods that enable researchers, artists and members of the public to exchange perspectives, develop ideas together and explore societal challenges.

The project contributes to knowledge valorisation – the process of turning knowledge and research results into value for society – by exploring how artistic approaches and public engagement can help make research more accessible, relevant and responsive to societal needs.

Rock It Cafés, Labs and Map

The project is developing and testing several approaches to collaboration between art, research and society:

• Rock It Cafés create informal but structured spaces where researchers, artists and citizens meet, exchange perspectives and build relationships.
• Rock It Labs provide opportunities for artists and researchers to collaborate and develop creative responses informed by the ideas and perspectives emerging from the Cafés.
• Rock It Map identifies and shares examples of art–science collaboration and public engagement within higher education.

The approaches are being tested by project partners in different European contexts, with experiences and lessons used to refine methods that can later be used by other higher education institutions.

A broader collaboration model

Rock Your Research explores how universities can become more open and collaborative spaces where researchers, artists and members of the public contribute different forms of knowledge and experience.

By testing new participatory methods and building connections across disciplines and sectors, the project aims to develop approaches that can support longer-term public engagement and knowledge exchange. It will also generate practical insights into how artistic collaboration can enrich the ways knowledge is created, shared and discussed, helping research connect more closely with society.