Storytelling for Change Literature Review Commission

The opportunity

Literature Review Commission

Storytelling for Change: the evidence

Literature review commission

This is an opportunity to lead the Storytelling for Change Literature Review Commission at University of the Arts London.

This literature review will explore what evidence has been found that storytelling leads to social and environmental change. We’re interested in the current knowledge in this area, what theories exist, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

We are interested in both scholarly works (academic articles and research studies) and industry findings.

Specifically:

• What evidence there is that storytelling/the arts can lead to real-world social/environmental change.
• Case studies where storytelling has had real world impact.
• Types of impact that storytelling has (social attitudes, behaviour change, cultural shifts,policy change).
• Methods of evaluating how storytelling has had impact.

Details

We are looking for work done both inside and outside academia.

• Storytelling for us is broad. Storytelling exists as arts, media and campaign assets, as well as the symbolic stories (or narratives) used by society and in our popular culture.
• The sectors we have seen work done in this area includes campaigning, funders, festivals, distributors, narrative change, creative industries*. There may be more.
• Types of research include academic papers, audience insights, narrative change papers, evaluation tools, distribution and impact field guides, impact media models, impact workbooks and more.

We understand this is a wide and potentially highly expansive brief, but that we view this as an important first step for the AKO Storytelling Institute to start to collate and gather evidence and examples in this space and we’d welcome a conversation to discuss the boundaries/parameters.

Output Timeline

• A detailed study plan June 2023.
• A draft report outlining findings by September 2023.
• A final report by October 2023.

Budget

The total available budget for this study is £9,999 including VAT.

About you

How to submit a proposal for this work

Please email the following information to storytelling@arts.ac.uk by 5pm Wednesday 24 May 2023.

• The CV for any team members who will carry out this work.
• No more than four sides of A4 detailing.
• Why you are qualified to conduct this study, including examples of relevant work carried out.
• An outline of the methodology you propose to employ.
• An outline budget (if appropriate).
• Two references.

If your written proposal is successful you will be invited to discuss your proposal.

Contact

If you have any queries about this role or need any reasonable adjustments for your application, please contact AKO Storytelling Institute via email at storytelling@arts.ac.uk.

What we offer

We are UAL

The AKO Storytelling Institute works at the intersection of storytelling and social change. As a part of University of the Arts London’s new Social Purpose Group, our mission is to enable storytellers and campaigners to make a greater social impact through their work. Through interdisciplinary experimentation and collaboration, we aim to develop evidence-based approaches to the theory and practice of storytelling-for-change.

Our research programme will be oriented towards fostering real world change through the development of theories, methods and toolkits for storytellers and campaigners to use further afield. We will share what we find through public events and media such as podcasts, blogs and videos, as well as traditional academic research outputs.

Find out more

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