The Value of the Arts and Humanities to Science in the Philippines

Abstract

This report discusses interim findings from the Creative Turn in the Sciences project, in which we explore and describe the state of art and science activities and collaborations—what has been variously referred to as “sciart” or “artscience”—in the Philippines. We argue that creative, transformative science can be supported along multiple fronts by engagement with the arts and humanities. As such, our view of creative industries need not be limited to currently identified ranges of cultural products and services. Artists can access new sources of not only funding and support, but also knowledge and inspiration, through engaging artscience in their work. If one of the value propositions of the arts is that it can provide a service, we propose that the arts and humanities could productively offer their services to the science R&D community in novel and underexplored ways. Our main contribution is the SHARES framework for enabling arts and humanities contribution to science research and translation (section 4).

Based on our interviews, the arts only minimally influences science and tech R&D in the Philippines, but only because it is usually not usually afforded the opportunity to do it more regularly or more deeply, if at all. However, the arts and humanities can lead to transformative and creative science processes and outcomes, and there is a nascent artscience community of practice in the Philippines that could benefit from support. To this end, funders, professional research organizations, and educational institutions can contribute to enabling shares through a number of ways:

# Keep (or include) the Arts in the ST(R)EAM acronym # Retrofit existing programs to include discussion on and practice in artscience # Create opportunities for internships and real-world alternative learning activities # Ringfence funding for artscience collaborations # Provide mechanisms for long-term monitoring and evaluation # Consider new forms of cultural work and new models for patronage # Take the lead as coordinators and mentors # Provide opportunities for both formal disciplinal dialogue and serendipitous interactions # Strike while the iron is hot