What we do

Artists create meaning, solve problems, and challenge expectations. The Arts Research Institute at UC Santa Cruz supports UC faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students involved in creative research, scholarship, and publicly-engaged practice. We are particularly interested in fostering critical interdisciplinary collaborations that reach across disciplines and genres and engage a broad range of off-campus partners, organizations, and communities. We are committed to supporting the diverse artists and scholars of our campus in an environment of respect, support, innovation, and exploration. We do this by building and supporting Arts Division research initiatives, coordinating and managing strategic planning and fundraising to elevate the visibility of the arts, placing equity and inclusion at the center of our work, coordinating cross-divisional, multi-campus, and national arts research collaborations, administering the ARI faculty grant program.