PbR Ontology project

Practice-based Research studies the nature of academic research across various disciplines.

The PbR Ontology project is led by Dr Daniela Büchler and co-organized by Prof Michael Biggs.  

Project Background

The AR-DP network and its related projects address the central question: is academic research in areas of design practice in some way different from dominant models of academic research in other disciplines?

It assumes that Practice-based Research (PbR) is a subcategory of academic research.

As a type of academic research, PbR should adopt the same fundamental definition of what research is, even if the terms and models used in the investigation differ from the ones currently in use in academic research.  

The definition of the ontology of PbR and is being investigated in two parts:

• the Swedish Architecture Theses project, which is funded by the Swedish Institute and conducted in collaboration with Lund University’s Institute of Architecture and Built Environment
• and the PbR Ontology project, which is conducted at the University of Hertfordshire.

The Swedish part focuses on PbR in architecture and considers the academic production of the Swedish architectural community by observing their sample of doctoral theses.

The University of Hertfordshire part focuses on the theoretical and more fundamental aspects involved in developing the PbR ontology.

Preliminary Findings

The preliminary review of the PbR literature revealed a range of terminology such as:

• practice-based research
• arts-based research
• art-informed research
• artists-as-researchers
• creative researchers
• artistic PhD
• practice-based PhD
• arts-based PhD
• practice through research
• practice as research

Different terms are used to describe similar issues in different areas, often describing different activities.

Despite the terminology having more than one meaning - terminological plurality - the analysis of the literature suggested the existence of pockets of academic production which investigate the same concepts and issues as the ones investigated by PbR.

It was identified that there are potentially other communities - within other disciplines and in other countries - that investigate the same or complementary issues.

It was recommended that a mapping and diagrammatic representation be produced of this academic production in order to reveal:

• the themes that are discussed
• the areas in which these themes are being considered
• the points of overlap between areas of interest
• recurring problems that are found in akin communities.

Research Proposal

The Swedish Architectural Theses project takes a case study approach, however in order to define the ontology of PbR that will be used to analyse the cases, a criterion-based approach is needed.

The present research proposes to study the nature of academic research across various disciplines.

This research will complement the Swedish part by supplying the criterion that is necessary to evaluate whether the Swedish research production is of the practice-based kind, and the analysis of the Swedish sample will incorporate empirical exploration into the theoretical development of the PbR ontology. 

This study will conduct a conceptual analysis of academic research and PbR, will identify conceptual gaps between these two types of research and ultimately propose the PbR ontology.

Aims of the PbR Ontology project

Our research will identify central categories of academic research and of PbR by adopting the iterative technique that is described by Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin 1998) in order to contribute empirical exploration to theoretical development.

Initially an open coding or flexible classification is conducted, which will contain concepts that appear in dominant academic models.

These categories will be used in the selection of the literature and the Swedish sample for the conceptual analysis, in which the aim is to identify basic concepts and avoid the exceedingly literal analysis of the terminology (Carley 1990).

The same method will be used to identify the concepts that are found to be popular in PbR and/or problematic for the recognition of PbR as academic research.  

The aim of conducting this conceptual analysis is to map the initial categories found in the current literature and identify conceptual gaps that may result from the lack of appropriate concepts or merely the lack of common terminology.

The conceptual analysis will produce: a terminological and gap mapping.

The results of the conceptual analysis will undergo a second iteration with the initial categories so that the central concepts of PbR can be proposed and the ontology can be defined.

This approach is advantageous because it enables the separation between intension of the researcher and the terminology, and between the established criterion and the content of the work.

In this way it will be possible to reframe the question of content (Schön 1991) so that the criterion that maintain rigour in the established regulations of academic research can be identified without being subject to the conditions that are imposed by the traditional formats where they were found.