Doctorate

The RADIAN doctoral program closely integrates research and creation. It is based on an innovative model that approaches research in art, graphic design, literary creation, and architecture through practice, placing the creative work and process at the heart of the doctoral student’s work, in dialogue with academic research.

Since 2018, the RADIAN doctoral program has been jointly administered by the Le Havre-Rouen School of Art and Design (ésadhar), the Caen/Cherbourg School of Arts & Media (ésam), the École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Normandie (ENSA Normandie), and the HMPL 558 Normandie Humanités doctoral school. Each of these partners is a member of the Normandy University Community of Universities and Institutions (COMUE). RADIAN is supported by the Normandy Region and the Ministry of Culture.

Offering experimental research rooted in contemporary creative practices, the RADIAN doctoral program is intended for artists, architects, designers, and/or authors with a proven and recognized body of work in their respective fields. RADIAN enables research through practice and experimentation that leads to the production of diverse artistic forms consistent with the research question. Fueled by constant back-and-forth between theory and practice, between conceptualization and experimentation, the research approach unfolds within and alongside the vocabularies, languages, methods, media, and challenges of contemporary creation.

Doctoral students are provided with a doctoral contract and have access to all the facilities of the partner institutions. Doctoral students are jointly supervised by one of the partner higher education institutions in the cultural sector and by Normandie Université. The doctoral program is supervised by two faculty members, at least one of whom holds a qualification to supervise research, and one of whom is affiliated with one of the three partner cultural higher education institutions.

In this context, the thesis consists of:

• A work of visual art, literature, or graphic design for the “contemporary creation” track
• A portfolio/logbook highlighting the creative process over the three years of the thesis
• A theoretical document (a document of at least 100 pages, meeting the academic standards of a thesis in the humanities). This body of work constitutes the subject of the thesis defense