[Week 5] All aboard the Studentship Inductions

This week was pure academia and for the first time I felt very indulged in my research activities. So far my experience has felt a little transient, popping up to Liverpool for various events and quick email exchanges forming most of my facetime with the team – but this week saw some dedicated time to review my initial draft of the Project Approval Form for my PhD, as well as a full on meet up for the latest intake at the Music Futures Studentship Induction Meeting at ACC Liverpool.

I’ll get onto the project approval form shortly, but the induction event was something I was so excited to attend – and incredible curious about. I have near enough 20 years’ experience in academia and cannot tell you how many student induction and orientation events I have attended, organised and delivered – it was so nice to be the subject of this experience for the first time ever. The event was run incredibly well, starting with introductions and an overview from Mat and Richard (Koeck – Director of Music Futures). We had an icebreaker session too, which I usually find incredibly awkward, but a super practical revolving line up was a great way to weaponize academics zeal for gasbagging about their work (“It’s not a question, more of a statement”) with likeminded individuals. Completely missing the social dynamic of the ice breaker set up, I ended up accidentally being in the ‘staff’ line and not the ‘student’ line meaning I spent the whole session meeting my fellow students instead! This turned out to be a wonderful experience, not least because I’ve known and worked with a fair number of the Music Future’s staff team previously, but I got to share in something with my fellow researchers something I’ve only have observer status for the last two decades: being excited about being a student!

Dr Mathew Flynn talks with his hands

 It was also great to meet faces to put to emails, especially the lovely Kirsty Connell – Music Futures Programme Manager, as well as having a discussion with my supervisorial team and co-director about the second phase of the upcoming Green Events Code of Practice pilot and how it might fit into the ambitions of the city whilst protecting the legitimacy of my research having been involved in the design, development and delivery of the pilot.

The other big chat I had this week was with Rachel, Sarah and Kezia – my PhD supervisorial team. I feel very lucky to have the oversight of these wonderful academics, and I am motivated heavily already by the fact I would never want to ever let this wonderful and supportive trio down! We are all still getting to know each other, but I’m already starting to experience how valuable it is having access to so much experience and intelligence in shepherding the formation of my own ideas into something more concrete. Sarah cuts a calm, detailed focus across proceedings that pulls at any loose threads that need tightening, Rachel is brilliant at articulating the strategic framing and positioning of the research itself and Kezia nourishes my brain with many perspectives on the variety of approaches to knowledge creation within epistemological contexts.

My first PAF meeting delivered everything I wanted and more. First off, clear and brutal critique: the live events industry could never stand to have academic rocks thrown and expect to walk away, ego unbruised. Having been involved in sector led research (rather than academic) these past few years I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to return to the academic method. The depressing geo-political context of this work sometimes makes academia feel like the final refuge of nuanced critical thinking and discussion; why we don’t welcome – or even invite critique to really test our ideas and values feels like a lost art in wider societal discourse. I believe to welcome challenge to your own ideas and perceptions is to invite the potential of change into your own foundation of beliefs – something I think is very important in testing whether something is really as good as you think it is, scary as this may seem useful critique has intrinsic value, vacuous compliments do not. Popper would not stand for this dogmatic conjecture in any case, and I would hope Bayes appreciates the flexibility around which these beliefs are held.

Music Futures slide deck

Secondly, the feedback session brought into focus the scale of challenge that lay ahead, especially in how one might articulate what innovation or new knowledge may look like three years in advance. The mode of the PhD – likely by practice – will need to by dynamic if it is to successfully establish environmental standards for music events; two major pieces of research have been released within six weeks of the start of my studies, and it would be wise to structure a process that can incorporate new narratives and findings as the PhD progresses. This is at least part of the reason why I have elected to write a weekly blog alongside my other outputs; taking time to understand my own perspectives on this work will hopefully help me to understand any bias I may have and help to improve my perspective on the efficacy of this work being able to produce it’s intended results. I’m also hoping a blog will be a much more accessible format for anyone working in events to follow this research in media res as opposed to waiting three years for an write up to find its way out of the ivory tower for people to discover.

So what is this PhD? What will the final thing look like?

The word “thing” took centre stage for much of the meeting, where it is expected some artefact or platform would be the material result of the research, contextualised by a short thesis and a narrative account of practice. Seeing as I intend to explore synthesis of “the thing” through the lens of social constructivism it would be churlish to speculate on what this might be at such an early stage, other than I anticipate forming some kind of high-functioning Frankenstein formula that pulls together existing best practice and research from around the world into something that is Liverpool shaped. This will take some serious planning, convening, auditing and synthesis if it has any chance of being successful – so I have little time to waste in working to create a foundational network that will hopefully facilitate better relationships once things are up and running. Speaking of which follow ups from Pop3 have started dropping into my inbox ready to be lined up for a fresh series of January meetings. Here’s a quick synopsis to finish:

• Hannah from WARP / Music Declares Emergency has been in touch about their Hope Over Feat campaign coming to the city in 2026, re-introducing me to Lewis Jamieson, CEO.

• Sanna from the Circular Arts Network followed up to arrange a meeting in January about circularity practice in Birkenhead

• The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic have invited me to speak about my career and sit on a sustainability panel at their 2026 event, an immediate career highlight and an instant yes from me!

• The Music Futures directors got in contact to share dates about preparing for an upcoming government event in early 2026

• James Gillaspy has been invited to speak at a network I co-chair (USAN, part of BAFA) about sustainable practice in urban festival settings

• I had a meeting with the lovely Luke Wallace and we are planning to meet as part of our ongoing commitments in 2026 either in the UK or his native Canada.

PhD Kolb!