European League of Institutes of the Arts

The European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) is an independent membership organization representing approximately 350 higher arts education institutions in 45 countries. It was founded in 1990 to represent, advocate and promote higher arts education and to create platforms of discussion and exchange at European as well as local and wider levels. Its office is located in Amsterdam. ELIA is funded by the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

History

ELIA emerged from a conference organized in Amsterdam in 1990, Imagination and Diversity, aimed to promote cooperation in art education around Europe. The organiser of the conference and founder of ELIA, Carla Delfos, is still the organization’s Executive Director. She was knighted Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 1993, and received honorary doctorates from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen in 2001, and Columbia College Chicago in 2009.

In 1991, ELIA helped founding the European Forum for Arts and Heritage (EFAH). In the same year, a conference in Budapest, in the wake of the fall of the Iron Curtain, opened up vistas for collaboration with Eastern Europe. At ELIA’s second General Assembly in Strasbourg 1992, the Manifesto for Arts Education in Europe was approved. A new version was approved in 2000. In 1996, ELIA was designated to organize a ‘Thematic Network for Higher Arts Education’ as part of the SOCRATES programme

Socrates programme

The SOCRATES programme was an educational initiative of the European Commission; 31 countries took part. The initial Socrates programme ran from 1994 until 31 December 1999 when it was replaced by the Socrates II programme on 24 January 2000, which ran until 2006...

. Thematic Networks for closer collaboration and research have since been central to ELIA’s activities.

Following the Bologna Declaration in 1999, these networks have been crucial in facilitating discussion and taking a position on the implications of the Bologna Process

Bologna process

The purpose of the Bologna Process is the creation of the European Higher Education Area by making academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe, in particular under the Lisbon Recognition Convention...

for higher arts education. To this end, ELIA has been cooperating closely with the European Association of Conservatoires

European Association of Conservatoires

The European Association of Conservatoires is the main association of colleges and university schools of music in Europe, which was established in 1953. It represents the interests of institutions that are concerned with training for the music profession...

(AEC), publishing four position papers together.

In 2008, ELIA received a European grant for a new multi-year project, Art Futures. It was renewed in 2011.

Structure

ELIA has three types of membership: full, associate, and non-European. The members are represented by the Representative Board, max. 21 members, which is elected by the General Assembly. From this Representative Board, an Executive Group of 5-9 members is elected, which monitors the activities carried out by the office and various steering groups. The Executive Group includes the President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Executive Director. Board members are elected for a period of two years. Members of the Board and Executive Group can be re-elected up to a maximum of ten years; the President only once.

Presidents

2010 - present Kieran Corcoran
2006 - 2010 Chris Wainwright
2004 - 2006 Maarten Regouin
2000 - 2004 John Butler
1996 - 2000 Chantal de Smet
1994 - 1996 Martin Rennert
1992 - 1994 Johan A. Haarberg
1990 - 1992 Patrick Talbot

Executive Director

1990 – present Carla Delfos

Vice-Presidents

Klaus Jung
Ulf Dalnäs

Treasurer

Steven Kapelke

Activities

ELIA’s activities include:

organising regular conferences as well as smaller symposia and workshops;
developing and running projects for students from member schools, and supporting projects from member schools;
coordinating networks for discussion, cooperation and the exchange of best practice;
conducting research on the state of play and developments in higher arts education.

ELIA is deeply concerned with the implications of the Bologna Process

Bologna process

for higher arts education: it has published a handbook and various position papers on the topic, and contributed to European projects in Quality Assurance and the assessment of Art degrees. Moreover, it has surveyed the development of innovative MA and PhD programmes, particularly in the newly emergent field of Artistic Research, which has been the topic of a 2005 conference and 2008 strategy paper.

Conferences

ELIA organizes three events that recur biennially:

the ELIA Biennial Conference, which includes the General Assembly, drawing 400-500 participants
Teachers’ Academy (since 2003)
Leadership Symposium (since 2003)

Apart from these multi-day events, ELIA has organized many symposia and workshops, and other large conferences, as in Chicago (2010), Tallinn (2007), Berlin (2005), and Tilburg (2003).

Biennial venues:

2010 Nantes
2008 Gothenburg
2006 Ghent
2004 Luzern
2002 Comhár
2000 Barcelona
1998 Helsinki
1996 Lisbon
1994 Berlin
1992 Strasbourg
1990 Amsterdam

Projects

ELIA’s most recent projects are:

NEU/NOW, a festival for emerging creative talent in Europe in all disciplines, which took place in Vilnius 2009, Nantes 2010, and is planned in Tallinn 2011;
Two film projects for students, Languages through lenses and I see you: the language of the arts and intercultural dialogue;
Design Train, a series of conferences and workshops on architectural and design education, with a strong focus on Turkey;
The Bloom! Hotel in Brussels, decorated with murals by students from ELIA member schools.

In previous years, ELIA has organized masterclasses in new music performance and voice training for actors, staged panoramas in Athens and London, and conducted research on employabity skills for art graduates and on gender equality in arts education. A present issue is the role of art schools with regard to the Creative Industries

Creative industries

The creative industries refers to a range of economic activities which are concerned with the generation or exploitation of knowledge and information...

Networks

Since 1996, there have been consecutive thematic networks of ELIA member institutions. These have been concerned with implementing and assessing the Bologna Process as well as with exploring new challenges for higher arts education.
Currently, ELIA and GradCAM (Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media, Dublin) are jointly coordinating the SHARE academic network for research in the arts. 35 graduate schools and institutions engaged in third-cycle research in the arts take part.

Previous networks have been:

2007 - 2010: artesnetEurope
2004 – 2007: inter}artes
2000 – 2004: Bologna
1996 – 2000: Thematic Network for Higher Arts Education in Europe.

Publications

ArtFutures: Current Issues in Higher Arts Education (2010) ISBN 978-90-810357-4-3
Peer Power: The Future of Higher Arts Education in Europe (2010) ISBN 978-90-810357-3-6
Reminder: speeches and reflections from the 10th ELIA Biennial (2009)
...I see you: The Language of the Arts and Intercultural Dialogue (2008)
Tapping into the potential of Higher Arts Education in Europe (2008) ISBN 978-90-810357-2-9
Teachers’ Academy Papers (2007) eds. Anne Boddington & David Clews ISBN 978-1-905593-07-1
New Practices, New Pedagogies (2005) ed. Malcolm Miles ISBN 0-415-36618-6
European Journal of Higher Arts Education (online journal, 2005)
European Journal of Arts Education (1998 – 2002)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.