RNCM wins AHRC Doctoral Focal Award to support creative research for a healthy planet, people, and place 

The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Doctoral Focal Awards to support research and training in areas vital to the UK’s creative economy and societal wellbeing.

The RNCM will partner with the University of Liverpool, the University of Central Lancashire, and 10 regional organisations on the Crafting Care for People, Place and Planet Doctoral College, which aims to train a new, inclusive generation of interdisciplinary researchers.

The theme will use innovative methods to explore the links between human health, ageing, wellbeing, environmental change, and our surroundings – aligning with the UK government’s Net Zero ambitions and wider mission to improve healthy life expectancy.

Building on over a decade of work from the University of Liverpool’s Centre for Health, Arts, Society & Environment (CHASE), the Doctoral College will explore how care is co-produced across human and non-human communities, with “craft” defined as broad expertise shaping interdisciplinary research for real-world impact.

Regional partners include leaders in health (Alder Hey, Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, Mersey Care, Wirral Public Health), environment (Canal and River Trust, The Mersey Forest), and the arts (DaDa, Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool Philharmonic, National Museums Liverpool), offering expertise, training, and placements.

The Focal Awards will foster future-facing research training and strategic skills that support the UK’s creative economy and societal wellbeing, providing pathways to careers for doctoral students and addressing skills gaps identified across specific research areas within and beyond academia.

AHRC Executive Chair Professor Christopher Smith said: ‘Introducing Focal Awards allows us to support cohorts of students in centres for excellence for strategically valuable areas such as health and the creative economy. In the future this approach will allow us, in consultation with the sector, to provide support where it is needed to disciplines across the arts and humanities, vital skills and digital humanities. But the scope for individual projects is wide and autonomy for researchers remains as important as ever.

‘The Focal Awards exemplify AHRC’s approach to doctoral training and our ambition for a sustainable portfolio providing support for training, investigator-led research, strategic direction and building the infrastructure necessary for people and ideas for the future of arts and humanities.’

4 July 2025