The CCW (Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon) Graduate School is the home of our research degree and taught postgraduate students, professors, readers and fellows and an equally impressive group of full time, part time and visiting tutors and other research supervisors, as well as established research centres, and research networks. Central to the success of the Graduate School is the quality of its re
search provision, the calibre of staff and students and the existence of real and sustainable partnerships and collaborative arrangements with external institutions, organisations and key individuals in the cultural sector and beyond. There are two key aspects of the Graduate School that define its distinctiveness: the first is a commitment to create and maintain a direct relationship between research focused activity and teaching with a requirement that all research staff, our professors, readers and fellows in particular, play an active role in teaching and supervision and that their research forms a crucial aspect of our student learning experience. The second is the commitment to providing a series of overarching thematic reference points that form a catalyst for cross disciplinary exchange and collaboration and a means of responding to broader social and cultural agendas that transcend subject specific concerns. In this respect we have identified the four areas of: Social Engagement, Environment, Identities and Technologies as themes that are explored through our Graduate School events programme and when we bring together our research communities and external partners in focused projects and activities. These two features of the Graduate School form the basis for a community of practice and a means of providing an opportunity for individual and group work that is informed by a rigorous critical framework that sets creative practice and enquiry in a broader social, cultural and economic context. Consequently it is our aim to engender a relationship to urgent issues of our time and highlight the need to explore innovative solutions to address the way we, and others, enact our futures.
