As part of the national prestige scheme of Centres for Excellence in Education, CEMPE’s mandate has been to explore learning and teaching practices that can support quality enhancement and innovation, and lead to significant changes in higher education.
Without doubt, higher music education has evolved significantly since 2013. Institutional change, however, is a complex process, with numerous factors at play. This complexity makes it challenging to identify and trace the origins of change processes. Still, in an attempt, we distinguish between changes led by CEMPE, changes facilitated by CEMPE, and changes made possible by CEMPE. Furthermore, we structure the text into changes on the personal level, the local level and the national and international level. To do this, we draw on our experiences combined with findings from a research project conducted by Veronica Ski-Berg, Ellen M. Stabell and Sidsel Karlsen (forthcoming). This research study draws on institutional theory, applied and developed by Veronica Ski-Berg in her Ph.D Pressures to Change. Institutional Politics in Higher Music Education (Ski-Berg, 2023). Furthermore, for this chapter, we draw on a survey sent to staff and students who have had roles in the management, as project leaders or as steering group members.
Changes on the personal level
Throughout the centre period, a substantial number of staff and students have received funding for projects or acted as participants, audience or panel members. Much of CEMPE’s impact is found on the personal level through the people who engaged in discussions and research and development projects and who subsequently changed their teaching methods or developed their teacher role, opening up other learning possibilities and often providing their students with more agency. The generative force of changes on the personal level is the effect changes in one teacher or student’s ways of working can have on colleagues and students and the academic environment as a whole. This kind of personal impact is difficult to trace and measure, but we still believe that this is one of CEMPE’s most important ones, highlighted by a quote from a staff member interviewed, quoted in Ski-Berg, Stabell & Karlsen, in review:
For me personally, through the coaching project in particular, I realised that I changed a lot as a teacher […] I had been very communicative with my students all my life, but I think I might have underestimated how much authority I had in that position.
Changes on the local level
Since NMH has hosted the centre, the strongest impact of CEMPE is perhaps found at NMH. It is the staff and students at NMH that primarily have been the centre of CEMPE's actions and initiatives. But in which areas has this impact been most clearly evident and observable?
Firstly, CEMPE’s activity fuelled curriculum development in the first phase through supporting initiatives and projects exploring alternative ways of teaching and learning. A major initiative concerned a renewal of the curriculum of the Master’s programme in music performance, which led to a more flexible structure, and projects linking the institution with society such as the Hammerfest project. Also, the entrepeneurial mandatory courses for bachelor students underwent significant developments. These were all changes led by or facilitated by CEMPE. Furthermore, among examples of changes made possible due to CEMPE, is the expansion of the bachelor of music with individual concentration, abbreviated to FRIBA, which has made NMH a more manifold and open institution where new ways of learning and teaching have been tested out and developed.
Secondly, also on the local level, CEMPE facilitated debate fora for nominal topics, such as diversity, inclusion, the legitimacy of music education, queer topics, gender and music, or musicians’ health. Having such fora for addressing issues of concern did transform the academy into a more open space during CEMPE’s period and helped bridge the gap between the institution and society
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A third initiative led by CEMPE at the local level that significantly influenced the study environment and students' perception of their role, was CEMPE’s introduction of student partnership positions and student project funding. The student projects that came to life in the second centre period fostered new learning practices, enhancing the relevance and diversity of NMH's performance education program. Simultaneously, the student leaders developed project management skills and experience as 'project makers'—a key role in today's music labour market, as identified by Sigrid Røyseng, Heidi Stavrum, and John Vinge (Musikerne, bransjen og samfunnet 2022).
However, the perhaps more profound impact of recognizing students as equal discussion partners and entrusting them with major projects and funding led to a change in the mindset of the students. The empowerment encouraged a boost in confidence among the student body, inspiring others to pursue projects and career ambitions during their studies. One student described the remuneration for involvement as "a game changer”, as it signaled greater value of students' work, instilling a sense of seriousness and responsibility (Ski-Berg & Stabell, forthcoming).
Changes on the national and international level
On the national level, CEMPE’s work has led to a more collaborative mindset, both on the managerial level and amongst staff and students. In a survey conducted by CEMPE at the end of 2023, institutional leaders and staff that have held managerial roles in CEMPE were invited to reflect upon how and in which ways CEMPE had contributed to change. The responces included “opening up for exploration and discussions around ways of teaching”, “creating a community around learning and teaching in higher music education” and creating an “institutional will to learn”. Others commented that CEMPE’s work had led to “increased focus on student agency, and more awareness and knowledge on music students health” and that CEMPE has “strengthened the national collaboration through conferences and innovation grants”.
The national and Scandinavian seminars arranged annually by CEMPE together with one of our sister institutions, have been very important in bringing the field together. The funding scheme where an important criterion was collaboration across institutions, disciplines and roles, have been of importance in order to create greater connections between institutions. The newly started national network for music students is another example on the student level, of how student partners and student-initiated projects have led to change on a national level.
On the European level, CEMPE has played an active role in two large AEC-projects, both funded by Creative Europe, namely Strenghtening Music in Society (SMS 2018-2021) and Artists as Makers in Society (2022-2025). In the SMS project, CEMPE had the lead of the working group 5, as well as run the AEC and CEMPE Platform of Learning and Teaching in Music Performance Education, called LATIMPE. The LATIMPE working group set up a webpage for dissemination of innovative learning and teaching models in higher music education around Europe. CEMPE and AEC also arranged two international conferences and published an anthology (edited by Stefan Gies & Jon Helge Sætre, 2019).
A crucial outcome of the SMS-project as a whole, was the nominal article on Artists as Makers in society by Helena Gaunt and colleagues (Gaunt et al., 2021). In the article, a paradigm shift of higher music education was described, where higher music education institutions must question their long-standing hierarchies and learning and teaching traditions, in order to pave the way for a greater artistic societal responsibility where the development of students’ artistic voice must be supported in new ways than before.