12 Scholarships Available in Digital Arts & Humanities - Structured PhD Programme in Digital Arts & Humanities (DAH)

DAH is a full-time four year inter-disciplinary structured PhD programme funded by the Higher Education Authority under its Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, Cycle 5. The PhD programme is co-ordinated with an all-Irish university consortium: National University of Ireland, Galway; Trinity College Dublin; University College Cork; and National University of Ireland, Maynooth and includes additional teaching contributions by Queen’s University Belfast; University of Ulster and the Royal Irish Academy and by its industrial partners, Google, IBM, and Intel.

What is DAH?
DAH is designed to enable students to carry out research in the arts and humanities at the highest level using new media and computer technologies. The ever-evolving developments in computing and their performative and analytical implications have brought about a quantum leap in arts and humanities research and practice. DAH is a field of study, research, teaching, and invention at the intersection of computing and information management with the arts and humanities.

The DAH Structured PhD programme will create the research platform, structures, partnerships and innovation models by which fourth-level researchers can engage with a wide range of stakeholders in order to contribute to the developing digital arts and humanities community world-wide, as participants and as leaders.

For the student, DAH will:

• promote advanced practical and academic research in applying innovative models of arts practice and theory, humanities research, archiving, and pedagogy
• provide coherent exposure to transferable skills in digital content creation that will be enabling, academically rigorous and commercially viable
• work with industry partners and cultural institutions to ensure knowledge exchange and career development.

Programme Structure
Candidates will choose to enter the program within either the ARTS or the HUMANITIES strands. In both strands they are required to complete core, training, and career development modules, including main modules shared across the consortium and others institutionally-based. The overall aim of the taught modules are threefold: 1) to introduce students to the history and theoretical issues in digital arts/humanities; 2) to provide the skills needed to apply advanced computational and information management paradigms to humanities/arts research; 3) to provide an enabling framework for students to develop generic and transferable skills to carry out their final research projects/dissertations.

Year 1
Includes core and optional graduate education modules delivered in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Maynooth. These modules provide a grounding in essential research skills and transferable skills together with access to specialist topics

Years 2-3
Work on PhD research projects is supplemented with access to elective modules

Year 3
Includes practical placements in industry/academic research environments/cultural institutions.

Year 4
Dedicated to completion of dissertation and digital projects.

DAH @ NUI Galway
The DAH programme at NUI Galway is shared between the Moore Institute for Research in theand the Huston School of Film & Digital Media. The ambition for Humanities and Social Studies Digital Humanities at the Moore Institute is to create synergies between humanities research, digital technology and innovation. Students enrolling in the DAH at the Moore Institute will be encouraged to create digital applications, including apps and downloadable webtrails, which bring the creative culture of Galway and its region to international visibility in partnership with local communities. The Huston has a dynamic approach to creativity in film and digital media training School of Film & Digital Media in conjunction with rigorous film and critical studies. The DAH research programme aims to support highly creative and excellently trained individuals develop advanced artistic practice in digital media at regional, national, and international levels. At the Huston School DAH will contribute knowledge and understanding in digital media, film, and television by means of enquiry conducted through practicebased research methods. The integrated aim of DAH @ NUI Galway will be to support and envision first class humanities research that is informed by the best teaching and support in digital theory and culture.

Application Process
NUI Galway is pleased to offer 12 funded scholarships for the DAH programme; scholarships are valued at €16k plus fees per annum. Six scholarships will be offered for PhDs in Digital Humanities within the Moore Institute for Humanities and Social Studies and six for PhDs in Digital Arts within the Huston School of Film & Digital Media. Entrants will be expected to have an upper second class honours degree (or better) within a relevant discipline.

Digital Humanities (offered by the Moore Institute)

Applications are invited in two clusters:
(i) Creativity at the Edges
(ii) Culture and Location

Proposals may consider the cultural location and archival holdings of NUI Galway. Proposals are encouraged in, but are not limited to, the following areas: Tim Robinson; the Druid Theatre Company; Cúirt; Tom Kilroy; John McGahern; Jack Yeats; Thomas Moore, linguistic, musical and cultural geographies of the west of Ireland in global context; tourism and culture; the environment. Discipline is open.

For further information on Digital Humanities please contact Professor Sean Ryder, sean.ryder@nuigalway.ie or www.nuigalway.ie/mooreinstitute.

Digital Arts (offered by the Huston School of Film & Digital Media)

Applications are invited in two clusters:
(i) Galway and the international -West coast culture in the digital age
(ii) Digital media practice-based research.

Proposals may examine questions such as: how arts practices on the west coast of Ireland act as a contact zone between the local and the international? Ideas and histories of the region can be seen in relation to wider contexts as people move in and out of the rhetorics of authenticity. In what way do specific digital arts practices offer forms of resistance to the impositions of a global image system? How can research and experimentation explore the intersection between artistic creativity and technological innovation? What forms can writing take in the digital age? How has the specificity of the digital changed the form, structure and function of narrative? Although there would be emphasis on practice-based doctorates in both these areas we will continue to be open to traditional academic formats.

For further information on Digital Arts please contact Dr. Rod Stoneman, rod.stoneman@nuigalway.ie or www.filmschool.ie.

Applications should be made online at the Postgraduate Application Centre: www.pac.ie/nuig - PAC code: GYG38. Two samples of academic writing (e.g. a recent BA or MA course essay) and a 1500-word research proposal should also be submitted through PAC in PDF format. The proposal must be structured under the following headings:

1. Description of proposed research (800 words)
This section should describe clearly the subject and scope of your research, and the proposed outcomes in terms of the creation of new resources, tools, knowledge transfer, etc. You should indicate the critical problems or questions you propose to address in the thesis component of your PhD, as well as the digital outputs that may arise from your work.

2. Context (350 words)
This section should describe, as far as you can tell, the extent of the existing academic and digital work in your area of interest. You should be able to explain how your research will challenge or extend this existing situation.

3. Methodology (250 words)
Here you should describe the specific methodologies and technologies you expect to employ.

4. Sources and Archives (100 words)
Give a preliminary indication of the primary and secondary material you expect to work with, and how much of the material may be found at NUI Galway.

Closing Date for Applications is Friday, June 17, 2011

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Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to ensure the above information is current and correct. However, applicants should contact the appropriate administering body before making an application, as details do change frequently.