Professional Doctorate in Arts + Creative is an educational pilot program in The Netherlands for an advanced degree in universities of applied sciences. The PD program at an university of applied sciences is developed to train an investigative professional. PD Arts + Creative is a unique Professional Doctorate program that focuses on the role of arts + creative research: not as a solitary endeavor, but as a collective and relational practice that inspires change and bridges disciplines.
This portal is a platform for publishing artistic research generated by the PD candidates. Within the Professional Doctorate Arts + Creative programme, this portal will also be used as an internal tool for documentation.
Featured Expositions
D.E.A.D.LINE (2025)
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Experimental article for the Performance Philosophy journal Vol. 9 No. 2 (2024): With the Dead: Performance Philosophy, Dying, and Grief.
The Resonance of Vocalising (2025)
Sophia Bardoutsou
The aim of this PD project is to bring artists and citizens together with each other and their environment, and collectively explore how the wordless voice can be a means of communication.
Candidates & Research Projects
Click here for more information about the candidates & their research projects
"Processing Artistic and Design Research" gathers two PD candidates in a conversation about artistic and design research, the process of a research project in the context of a third cycle in education, and the links we can foster between research and practice.
Episodes:
- Ep.1: Be Like Water, with Thijs van den Houdt and Taka Taka
- Ep.2: Designing Playingfields, with Tara Karpinski and Raymond Vermeulen
- Ep.3: Cycles of Life and Care with Risk Hazekamp and Stefan Schäfer
- Ep.4: Bleeding Edge with Jonas Pastoors and Raymond Vermeulen
- Ep.5: Sitting with (Eco) Anxiety, with Carlo de Gaetano and Kim Spierenburg
PD Arts + Creative regularly organises public gatherings, presentations, and dialogic events where candidates, supervisors, and partners meet and engage with broader audiences. These moments reflect the relational and reflective ethos of the programme.
National Professional Doctorate Day 2025
18 November 2025 | Social Impact Factory in Utrecht
The first edition of the Professional Doctorate Day brings together candidates and networks from all seven PD domains. This year’s theme is: Reimagining Urban Futures – Intervening through Practice-based Research for Liveable Cities (Linked to UN SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities)
The programme consists of contributions from PD candidates across four domains, offering new perspectives and tools to rethink how we design and inhabit our cities (mostly in Dutch but several sessions will be held in English). PD candidates representing the PD Arts + Creative domain are:
- Keynote by Sophia Bardoutsou: The River Speaks: Public Interventions on de Nieuwe Maas
- Workshop by Carlo De Gaetano: It Happened Tomorrow: Participatory Climate Fiction with Cultural Collections
- Panel contribution by Nadja van der Weide: Co-creation for Sustainable Embedding
These sessions open artistic and practice-based perspectives on shaping urban futures through creative and relational approaches.
We warmly invite PD candidates, members of graduate committees, and the graduate network to join us at the Professional Doctorate Day. Register via https://www.professionaldoctorate-pdday.nl/home/
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If you have questions regarding Professional Doctorate Arts + Creative and the Research Catalogue, please email us at pd-arts-creative@avans.nl
PD Arts + Creative is a joint effort by Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU), Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (AHK), Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of the Arts The Hague, Hogeschool Rotterdam, Codarts Rotterdam, Hanze UAS, Avans Hogeschool, Buas Breda Universit of Applied Science, Fontys Academy of the Arts, Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), Zuyd Maastricht Institute of Arts, Artez University of the Arts and Hogeschool InHolland.