Executive Master in Cultural Leadership
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• Facilitated by leading academics and world-class practitioners, the course offers a global understanding of art, culture and business in an interconnected world. The Executive MA in Cultural Leadership provides a remarkable platform to explore, discuss and debate, drawing on extensive scholarly and professional networks.
• The MA in Cultural Leadership is structured over eight intensive courses that can be completed within 18 months. The course also requires an academic dissertation or professional thesis project and a study trip. The modular structure means that you can study while you work, or supplement your study with extended experiences.
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Curriculum
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Critical perspectives in the history of art and culture
This core course introduces students to critical theories in the history of art and culture, including a range of academic and theoretical perspectives that have shaped our understanding of the creative and cultural sectors. It will consider how the arts, creative and cultural sectors evolve and change, looking at key trends today that will shape the future.
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Art business and cultural management
Within this core course, students explore both classical theories of management and business, and their application to the world of arts and cultural sectors. The course will build on established management and business theories familiar in established business school curricula, with important adaptations relevant for the business, management and leadership of the arts and the cultural sectors.
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Collecting and collections management
This course introduces students to the fascinating world of collecting, collections building and management. This is relevant both for the public sector (museums) and the private sector (galleries, dealers and client base of private collectors). Students will be encouraged to see the value in individual objects as well as in combination, and explore how something can be “greater than the sum of its parts”. Following on from the Critical perspectives and Art business courses, students will be encouraged to consider both the finance and economics of collecting, and the historic and social significance of collections.
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Cultural leadership trajectory
Throughout the year programme
Leadership skills are critical in sustaining a strategic advantage. Understanding how to drive change within a corporate environment or social enterprise is vital in providing a business climate that will enable companies to meet the challenges of the future. Effective leadership skills, competencies and capabilities have some universal qualities across all sectors of human endeavour, but successful leadership must also be adapted to specific contexts. Participants will be exposed to core leadership skills and the unique qualities needed for leadership in the arts, cultural sectors and organisations founded on creativity will be explored in depth. The personal leadership unit, as well as keynote lectures from inspirational leaders throughout the year, will complement class-based learning, individual and group work throughout the year.
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Art and Law
This core course will consider the legal frameworks necessary for dealing with artworks and goods that have important cultural and heritage value but are also tradeable. A special challenge for the law related to art and cultural objects is the fact that the art trade (legal as well as illicit) is a truly international market. Since artworks are relatively easy to take across borders, objects can show up all over the globe. International and multicultural perspectives, as well as significant local knowledge, are critical.
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Personal leadership
The leadership development trajectory is unique to the Executive MA. It is designed to tailor a participant’s individual requirements to challenges and goals, within their own cultural environment and organisation as well as internationally. Professional coaching helps to reflect on current behavioural patterns, as well as develop leadership skills with a view to improving individual performance. Building upon the foundations of leadership theory and developing an interdisciplinary approach across the programme courses helps to formulate leadership skills central to business culture, differing across countries. Mixed-group work in the classroom, guest lectures from global leaders and professional coaching form the integral blocks of this core topic.
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Technology and innovation
This course will provide an exciting exploration and analysis of recent developments and current trends in the arts, creative and cultural sectors and the transformative opportunities, as well as risks, associated with new technologies and recent innovations. Because cultural firms operate within a rapidly changing, highly uncertain and dynamic environment, perspectives on some of the most innovative individuals and organisational players equip students with important know-how, enabling success across industries and organisations.
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Study trips
Past trips have included: FRIEZE, TEFAF, BRAFA, Artissima and the Venice Biennale
Participation in a minimum of a study field trip is required as part of this experience-orientated programme. Visits provide immersive and interactive educational time, in which students explore and reflect on the core themes and teachings across all the other courses. A specific event in the cultural world, for example an art fair, is visited, explored and analysed, providing students with a real-life case study linked directly with the programme curriculum, aims and objectives. Study trips provide active and experiential learning to reinforce classroom teaching. They provide an opportunity to explore ideas and knowledge and test theories introduced in the classroom as subjects are addressed from multiple perspectives.
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Research methods
An essential part of an MA-level academic programme is learning how to conduct and interpret leading research and analysis. The ability to conduct high-quality analytical research for commercial purposes is also at the heart of many successful businesses, although often underestimated. For knowledge-based organisations and in today’s information economy, research is central to competitive advantage and long-term success. This unit will introduce students to a range of important quantitative and qualitative research methods – highlighting both strengths and limitations and how they can be applied in practice to support strategic decision-making and operational efficiency.
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Events and exhibitions
This course analyses how the culture of exhibition and display has changed over time, how exhibitions have helped to shape and define the creative sphere, and the way we look at and understand arts and cultural artefacts. Although location and display have affected the relationship between art and its public throughout history, planned temporary exhibitions –including public and private displays and staged encounters – are a relatively recent phenomenon emerging alongside the modern museum. From the 18th century onwards, the Royal Academy has played a central role in this history, including the earliest artist-led exhibitions and the staging of an annual temporary display of contemporary art, which has survived continuously for nearly 250 years. Known today as the Summer Exhibition, it provides a core case study that students will explore and experience as part of this course.
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Professional project and/or academic thesis
Participants on the programme are encouraged to use their final project to pursue their professional ambition, utilising either their own contacts or the extensive professional networks of both the Royal Academy of Arts and Maastricht University. They may also choose to write a purely academic thesis based on archival, secondary or primary research, if preferred. The thesis is on a topic of the student’s choice, passing through a rigorous topic-development process alongside academic faculty with practitioner advice and finally a dedicated supervisor. The final topic will be agreed upon by the programme directors, aiming to make an exciting and rigorous contribution to the existing body of knowledge. The thesis provides students with the opportunity to rigorously develop their own research and/or professional interests in relation to the realm of cultural leadership. It can either take the form of an academic thesis based on archival and primary research; or a professional project based on identifying and answering business needs and/ or managerial issues. Each student is assigned a dedicated supervisor. Upon validation of their choice by the programme directors and through a rigorous topic-development process, they will work on an exciting and original contribution to the topic of cultural leadership.
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