Central Saint Martins is renowned for the creative energy of its students, staff and graduates. Experimentation, innovation, risk-taking, provocation, questioning and discovery are fundamental to our research, practice, education and innovation in art, design and performance.

Our research strengths are in the subjects reflected in our School structure, namely Art; Fashion and Textile Design; Communication, Spatial and Product Design; and Performance as well as interdisciplinary research collaborations and research involving our unique archives and museum collections. Activities range from practice-based investigation in which artists, designers and performers explore their creative interests within a rigorous academic framework, to systematic theoretical enquiry into some of the most significant challenges of the day.

Much of our research crosses disciplinary boundaries and is carried out in collaboration with industry, commerce, museums and galleries, governmental organisations and other internationally-recognised academic institutions. Our work is funded by the EU, the UK government research councils and departments linked to business, industry, and knowledge transfer, charitable trusts and foundations, and by many other sources including the British Academy and the British Council. The results of our research take many forms including artefacts, designs, patents, catalogues, exhibitions, digital resources of various kinds, as well as published work such as books, journal articles and commissioned reports.

The College's Research Strategy 2010-2015 sets out in detail our values, aspirations, and priorities as we work to pursue research excellence, and seek to make impacts which are relevant to the challenges facing society.

CSM is part of the University of the Arts London. We have played a leading role in the development of many of the University's formally designated Research Centres. We value the benefits that can accrue from such research institutions that operate across UAL Colleges. We have particularly strong relationships with the UAL research centres for Design Against Crime (CDAC) and Textile Futures (TFRC), both of which are located at the College, and with the Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN). These Centres exemplify how collaboration among academics from across the university can foster research and innovation and thus present substantial international profiles which attract external partnerships to encourage, support and promote research.

Our research students benefit from the cross-university research network for doctoral students, RNUAL, which provides comprehensive research training and seminar programmes and opportunities to participate in the University's research centres and wider research networks.

Our research students work on a broad range of research degree projects from theoretical, through experimental, to practice-based studies. We encourage students to contribute to our research community, to initiate collaborations, to develop their own external research profiles, and to participate fully in the life of the College and the University. Many of our students prefer to be registered part-time so as to pursue their studies in a flexible manner alongside their professional activities in teaching, art and design practice, or curation.

[Image: stained section of the wild orchid Ophrys Tenthredinifera by Rob Kesseler]