This structure sees to the development of specific research programmes. These are put forward by teams bringing together teachers, teaching assistants and students who have completed their master’s degree, collaborating with other research centres, artists, researchers and public or private partners. They involve practices, competencies and knowledge available within the school and are open to other fields and other disciplines of research. They will aim to develop a synergy with outside contributors both from within the art world and from other sources.The programmes set up are careful to build and document a critical approach, methods and results. Each year they organise events, conferences, public lectures, seminars, exhibitions and workshops.

This pole allows and develops a space for experimentation and reflection out of which novel forms of artistic thinking and action are able to emerge in a less haphazard fashion and unhampered by immediate needs. It fosters critical exchanges, both practical and theoretical, between different disciplines by building bridges, enhancing specificities, allowing room for divergences.

It will make it possible to strengthen within the students’ degree course an alertness to the practice of research through the creation of in-depth experimental moments, with a view to initiating a practice of reflection, and to organising, evaluating and interpreting the results from a theoretical or practical perspective.