This prize recognises the importance of practice research in the theatre, performance and dance research. Where practice research has been present across all TaPRA Awards, this prize specifically recognises the importance and centrality of practice to our research cultures whilst understanding that it is often less critically valued in relation to fully written scholarship and has therefore been less present in prize nominations and winners.

Practice Research is a purposefully broad term which indicates a wide variety of work including performances, workshops, curatorial activities, producing, applied practices, pedagogical innovations, creative writing, digital work and more, all of which having complex and differing relationships to critical and contextual writing. Rather than delivering an extensive list or limiting practice to particular forms or genres, we understand practice as diverse and diffuse, with disciplinary standards, norms and resistances emerging from multiple locations. This prize recognises practice research which would have a similar scope and ambition to a monograph or edited collection.

We welcome submissions from practice researchers at any stage and will assess work on its merits in the context of the field in which it is situated as well as the discipline at large. Documentation must be fully accessible to third party reviewers – for instance, on video sharing platforms, via a file sharing platform, or as images, files, or hyperlinks embedded in a written text – and may be presented  alongside contextual work. Submissions could include links to documentation alongside written and contextual work, which can be bundled up with scholarly writing, where appropriate. All submissions need to be accompanied by a 300-500 word contextual paragraph by the nominee/nominator making the case for how the work submitted meets the purpose and criteria of the prize.

Self-submission is accepted and encouraged, particularly considering the diffuse nature of the outputs which may be submitted to this prize.

Criteria:

Originality – What new/innovative perspectives/material/insights are presented in the practice research?

Significance – What influence or potential for influence does this work have on its area? What important and innovative contribution to knowledge and understanding within a field does this practice research make?

Excellence: How innovative and ambitious is the contribution?

Nomination

Only current TaPRA members can submit nominations for this prize. The nominee does not need to be a member of TaPRA or be working in the UK.

You may self-nominate or nominate someone else from a different institution.

Please note that when nominating for this prize, you should select the Transformative Research Prize option from the drop-down menu until we finish resolving a glitch that affects amendment selections.”

Nominations must be seconded by a current TaPRA member, who is from a different institution than the nominator. You may not nominate or second more than one person for this prize in any given year.

Submission

You can add links to work on the PDF nomination form. Get in contact with Awards officers if this mode of submission isn’t appropriate and you need to submit your work/portfolio of work differently.

A 300-word statement from the nominee/nominator making the case for how the work submitted meets the purpose and criteria of the prize as well as  the importance of the work. The statement will not be used as part of the judging process, but it may be used for promotional purposes.

Prize

Invitation to present work in collaboration with the TaPRA Gallery the TaPRA conference following the award and membership of TaPRA for a year, normally the year following the award.

In recognition of the precarity of our current economic situation and growing inequalities in income and wealth, any financial award of up to £200 can be claimed for expenses, conference attendance and/or the organisation of the panel, but we leave this at the discretion of the individual.

Regulations

The practice must have occurred recently, within three years leading up to the nomination deadline. Co-created/produced works may be submitted for this award and will be considered as a joint submission.

The same piece of work cannot be submitted for this prize more than once.

Winners of this prize may not enter a second time.