Doctoral Focal Awards in the Arts and Humanities: East Midlands SLAM

East Midlands SLAM (Sustainable Living And Mental Well-Being) is a consortium of four universities and non-HEI partners around the urban conurbation of the East Midlands (Loughborough, Leicester and Nottingham), with the principal aim of training emerging changemakers across the priority theme of Healthy People, Planet and Place. It is situated at the nexus of Environmental and Health Humanities to address what it means to live in an inclusive, sustainable, flourishing community and demands a conjoined approach that maps to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. EM-SLAM provides the opportunity for new dialogues to address the interdependent social impacts of the environmental and mental health crises, including climate anxiety and feelings of ecological hopelessness. Consortium members have been at the forefront of developing Health Humanities in the UK, and internationally with UKRI support, and are therefore equipped to offer a unique postgraduate experience. To explore the complex issues, it adopts a transdisciplinary, co-production approach across a wide range of hitherto disparate disciplines and diverse stakeholders. EM-SLAM will train a minimum of 40 doctoral researchers over a 9-year period (30 AHRC-funded, 10 match-funded by the HEIs), a new generation of arts and humanities researchers (including practice-based researchers), and future-focused policy makers, third sector workers, arts practitioners and business leaders trained in the following transdisciplinary methods and skills: Creative research across disciplinary boundaries Storytelling approaches to policy-making and implementation Conjoined thinking to address major societal challenges Impactful working across academic fields, partnering with sector leaders Co-design of research, co-creation of outputs, co-production of knowledge. EM-SLAM is led by Loughborough University’s Storytelling Academy, a world-leading research and teaching centre based in Design and Creative Arts, focussing on Applied Storytelling and Storytelling for Change. Storytelling is the core of the programme as a methodology ensuring impactful research, and a bridge to enable transdisciplinary working and knowledge co-creation and co-production. The wider leadership team includes researchers across disciplines including Health Sciences, Psychology, Environmental Science, Critical-Creative Writing, Design, and Sports Science. This is underpinned by a larger supervisor pool which draws upon expertise from across the disciplinary spectrum. Whilst EM-SLAM will reach across the full range of the Environmental and Health Humanities, the initial focus, as the name suggests, will be in the areas of Sustainable Living and Mental Health and Well-Being, where the partnership already has considerable expertise. It is an initiative with a global optic that simultaneously promotes the East Midlands as a key incubator for two intersecting reasons. Firstly, this area is amongst the most culturally diverse in the UK and compels an enquiry that confronts spurious inclusionary narratives when it comes to environmental and health challenges. Secondly, it commits to fostering a vibrant transdisciplinary ecosystem in a UK region so often overlooked between the mythologised spaces of the North and the South. EM-SLAM will measure its success, impact and progress against the following aims: Creating postdoctoral career paths across academic and non-academic environments Nurturing an inclusive research culture and attracting non-traditional applicants Embedding storytelling as an effective approach to policymaking and implementation Establishing the East Midlands as a recognised region of expertise for transdisciplinary, applied storytelling and the interface between sustainable living and mental health and well-being Pioneering a model of excellence for cross-institutional and cross-sector collaboration Effecting change in practice within partner organisations.