Higher education should be R&D-based, according to Norwegian law. It should be «based on the foremost within research, academic and artistic development work, and experience-based knowledge» in order to conduct «research and academic and artistic development work at a high international level» and, in the case of art, «promote an understanding of [...] application of [...] artistic methods and results in the teaching of students, in the institution's own general activity as well as in public [...] cultural life [...]».

This principle gives rise to a number of questions and discussions. One obvious tendency is the shift away from the idea of research-based teaching towards the idea of R&C-based education. The teachers’ research expertise and research activity are key to the former, while in the case of the latter the term “R&D-based” represents a broader understanding of knowledge development. By focusing on the study programme as a whole, it also incorporates aspects such as the students’ own work and student-active forms of learning. There is also discussion around how R&D-based learning can and should be realised in different fields and types of education; which economic and practical challenges the institutions face when realising it; and not least how R&D-based education can help meet the targets for quality in education, including its relevance to the labour market the students will be entering.

Relatively little has been written and said about R&D basis in art education. This may have to do with the fact that acceptance of the performing and creative arts as a separate field of knowledge, on its own terms, has come late compared with other disciplines. Artistic research has only come into its own in the past 20–30 years. Norwegian law put artistic research on an equal footing with academic research in 1995, the artistic research programme was established in 2003, and the PhD degree in artistic research was only formally established in 2018. 

The term R&D includes different types of research and development work. In the performative and creative music education, artistic research is central, together with R&D in music aesthetics, musicology and pedagogy.

Conducting artistic research involves exploration and reflection in the person’s artistic practice. Artistic research generates new experiences, skills, knowledge and insight in the creative and performing arts.

Artistic research in music involves exchanging knowledge and experiences on an artistic and musical basis; articulating and thematising musical questions through practice and reflection on content and context in performance and creative production; reflecting on artistic and musical work processes; contributing to critical dialogue and knowledge-sharing in arts and music; informing reflection at the institutions through contextualization and critical discussion; contributing to and challenging practices and discourses in music; and strengthening artistic and musical expertise in society.

In what way can higher music education and artistic research (AR) work together to increase the quality and relevance of the education?