A new direction for liberal arts and sciences: in-depth research-based study set in a broad context of interdisciplinary knowledge, underpinned by Surrey's unique approach to personal and professional development.
Collaboration inspires scientific thinking. Partnerships across scientific disciplines open up new ways of seeing things, encouraging researchers to look afresh at research areas using novel tools and techniques.
Models and Mathematics in Life and Social Sciences (MILES) encourages a productive collision of ideas. Imagine: mathematicians working hand-in-hand with psychologists, or mechanical engineers investigating questions usually associated with the arts. A three-year EPSRC-funded project, MILES brings together academics from diverse backgrounds, giving them freedom to pursue new research that can only emerge through interdisciplinary discussion.
From studies looking at how ballet can help us to age better to workshops exploring the interaction of human gestures and computer language; MILES is guiding future directions in research through an ongoing series of participation-building events and activities.
Arts and science are traditionally regarded as separate lines of intellectual pursuit, with exponents prone to disagreement over which is more important. This split was most famously discussed - and lamented - by British scientist and novelist C.P. Snow in his 1959 lecture on the 'two cultures', and is the focus of research for Dr Gregory Tate of the School of English and Languages.
In his work, Dr Tate looks at how literature and literary figures engage with science, especially in the 19th century. This seminal era for English literature was also the time when people began to place reason and emotion at opposite ends of the spectrum in understanding the world and human nature. Scientific advances led many to believe that a perfect society was possible, counterbalanced by the rise of romanticism and its hostility to technology and urbanisation. Some literary figures of the time were enthusiastic defenders of science, while others thought it an inferior form of learning.
In tracing the development of this relationship through the 19th century, Dr Tate is addressing issues that remain relevant today. The two cultures still exist, of course. "But," he asks, "as long as they do not fall into a hierarchy, with one privileged and the other neglected, is this necessarily a bad thing?"
Are you creative? If you answered 'no', you may have underestimated yourself.
Creativity isn't just about painting pretty pictures. People exhibit creativity in all sorts of ways - in art and performance, but also in problem-solving, in organising and administration, in technical innovation, even in thinking about creativity itself.
ILLUME is a new centre for research into creativity that has brought academics together from across the University. Directed by Dr Paul Sowden, members are drawn from our experimental, organisational, social, environmental and neuro-imaging teams in psychology (a discipline where creativity research has decades of history) but also from our groups of experts in mathematics, in English literature, in business management, in sociology, and in music.
ILLUME projects will pick apart the creative thought process using a multi-layered, multi-disciplinary approach in order to understand creativity on all its different levels, join them up, and develop new methods that will help all kinds of people and organisations to improve their innovative thinking.
Personal experiences often inspire artistic endeavours, but they can also inform an academic’s choice of research topic.
For Dr Milton Mermikides (composer, musician and lecturer in the Department of Music and Sound Recording) the personal, the artistic and the academic came together in his BloodLines project.
For this, he took daily blood-test results generated during his own treatment for leukaemia and translated them via digital creative technology into an electronic composition that forms an extraordinary autobiological work, with each second of music representing a day of treatment.
BloodLines grew out of Milton’s Hidden Music: Sonic Translations of the Biological World project, and also forms the pilot for Science Through Art: A Chimera of Cultures.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Science In Culture scheme, Science Through Art allows Milton to support an international research network of scientists, writers, choreographers, musicians and artists. Collaboration across these disciplines helps science and art to understand each other better, and encourages each to help the other communicate in new ways to new audiences.
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For postgraduate taught and research admissions enquiries, please see the individual course pages.
