MEDIT: Follow the Money? Film Practice Research and Impacts

In this talk, Erik Knudsen will explore the emergent and evolving challenges and opportunities presented to practice led film researchers. In particular, he will lay out the policy landscape around impact, as it pertains to the UK. He will then illustrate through a practical case study of his Arts and Humanities Research Council funded research project, StoryLab Research Network (storylabnetwork.com and the spin off, storylabconversations.org), how filmmakers can, and need to, engage with research impact agendas in order to be fully recognised as contributing to the wider research environment. He will argue for the importance of this engagement as a means of accessing serious research funding. He will then demonstrate how his engagement with this wider research impact agenda through his research project, StoryLab, is closely tied to, and springsfrom, his own filmmaking practice. The ultimate aim of the talk is to articulate how it is possible to extrapolate wider research significance, rigour and impact from very personal creative intentions.

Erik Knudsen is a filmmaker and Emeritus Professor at the University of Lancashire in the UK, where he was formerly the Faculty Director of Research for the Faculty of Culture and Creative Industries. Heis also currently Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Languages and Communications, Universiti Pendidican Sultan Idris, Tanjong Malim, Perak, Malaysia. Prior to joining University of Lancashire, Erik was a Professor of Visual and Digital Culture at Bournemouth University’s Media School. He has also been Professor of Film Practice at the University of Salford, Manchester, UK, where he was for a period of time Head of the School of Media, Music and Performance. During his many years at the University of Salford, Erik also acted as the University of Salford’s Director of Graduate Studies. Earlier roles at the University of Salford include programme leading the MA in Fiction Film Production, the MA in Television Documentary Production and the MA in Wildlife Documentary Production. Prior to his University of Salford tenure, he was Head of Production at the Northern Film School at Leeds Beckett University. He writes extensively about creative film practice, such as in his book, Finding The Personal Voice In Filmmaking (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).  

As a multiple prize winning filmmaker, his recent feature films include Goodwin Island (99 minutes, fiction, 2024), True Calling (88 minutes, fiction, 2021), Cleft Lip (84 minutes, fiction, 2018), The Raven On The Jetty (88 minutes, fiction, 2015).

Erik Knudsen is also creatively engaged with photography, exemplified by projects such as his photographic essay,Cuba in Waitingand Doubt. He recently completed a commission for the Chester Photo Festival 2025, two photography inspired narrative short films, Medal of Honour and Letting Go. A third short film, Sacred Covenant, to be released in October 2025, completes this Parables Trilogy.

The seminar is held in English.