The aim of this project is to interrogate the relationship between tinnitus and the creative arts, with a view to enriching understandings of and diversifying dominant cultural tropes about the condition. Around 30% of people experience tinnitus at some point in their lives, with prevalence increasing with age. Clinical approaches rely on measurable, objectifying frameworks for discussing the condition, understanding it in terms of impairment and dysfunctionality. In humanities and popular discourse, descriptions of tinnitus rarely extend beyond evocations of ringing in the ears. Yet experiences of tinnitus are highly individualized and context-specific. The project proposes that the creative arts - as a field concerned with self-expression and sensory, subjective and contextual experience - may serve a key role in developing alternative methods, frameworks and terminologies that can effectively account for tinnitus' variations, resulting in better understandings of the diverse ways in which tinnitus is experienced by listeners. In this project, tinnitus is framed as a condition with diverse manifestations and a critical lens through which to re-evaluate understandings of auditory experience in the arts and humanities. The objectives are explored through four questions: 1) how can the creative arts generate and mediate knowledge about tinnitus? 2) How does tinnitus transform concepts of listening, embodiment, noise and soundscape? 3) How might practice-based arts research be used to develop alternative approaches to tinnitus, enriching understandings of the condition? 4) How might the creative arts be beneficial to the tinnitus community? This project offers an innovative response to RCUK's theme of Lifelong Health and Wellbeing. Consisting of three strands, it involves collaboration between academics, artists and two non-HEI partners: The British Tinnitus Association (BTA) and Oxford Visual Arts Development Agency (OVADA). The non-HEI partners' relationships with medical researchers, care professionals, clinicians and support groups (BTA); and artists and the general public (OVADA), will enable the project to engage with a wide range of stakeholders and benefit from the sharing of expertise. The project will also be aided by an advisory committee of two external collaborators: Professor of Hearing Sciences, David Baguley and Professor of Music, John Levack Drever. The first strand examines the aesthetics of tinnitus, critically reflecting upon aural, visual and rhetorical depictions in the arts. It involves a cross-disciplinary symposium, bringing together clinicians with arts, humanities and sciences academics, resulting in the development of a special issue of the journal The Senses and Society. The second strand explores how artistic methods adapted from soundwalking and sound-mapping can generate knowledge about the spatial, psychoacoustic and affective properties of tinnitus. It involves three one-day workshops with participants from the tinnitus community. These will be held in Sheffield, Oxford and London; and will offer a space to critically and creatively reflect upon how experiences of tinnitus are shared. The BTA and the advisory committee will help promote the workshops and offer practical guidance. Outcomes from the workshops will be hosted on an interactive, public-facing website, alongside work from the other strands of the project. The third strand involves the development of an art exhibition, facilitated by OVADA. Consisting of newly-commissioned work responding to the project's core themes, this will also interrogate how tinnitus and auraldiversity can inform curatorial and exhibition practice. Combining artistic methods, theoretical reflection and stakeholder engagement, this project makes an original contribution to discourses around health, medical science and the arts; and to important discussions about disability and accessibility in sound studies, arts theory and practice.

The aim of this project is to interrogate the relationship between tinnitus and the creative arts, with a view to enriching understandings of and diversifying dominant cultural tropes about the condition. Around 30% of people experience tinnitus at some point in their lives, with prevalence increasing with age. Clinical approaches rely on measurable, objectifying frameworks for discussing the condition, understanding it in terms of impairment and dysfunctionality. In humanities and popular discourse, descriptions of tinnitus rarely extend beyond evocations of ringing in the ears. Yet experiences of tinnitus are highly individualized and context-specific. The project proposes that the creative arts - as a field concerned with self-expression and sensory, subjective and contextual experience - may serve a key role in developing alternative methods, frameworks and terminologies that can effectively account for tinnitus' variations, resulting in better understandings of the diverse ways in which tinnitus is experienced by listeners. In this project, tinnitus is framed as a condition with diverse manifestations and a critical lens through which to re-evaluate understandings of auditory experience in the arts and humanities. The objectives are explored through four questions: 1) how can the creative arts generate and mediate knowledge about tinnitus? 2) How does tinnitus transform concepts of listening, embodiment, noise and soundscape? 3) How might practice-based arts research be used to develop alternative approaches to tinnitus, enriching understandings of the condition? 4) How might the creative arts be beneficial to the tinnitus community? This project offers an innovative response to RCUK's theme of Lifelong Health and Wellbeing. Consisting of three strands, it involves collaboration between academics, artists and two non-HEI partners: The British Tinnitus Association (BTA) and Oxford Visual Arts Development Agency (OVADA). The non-HEI partners' relationships with medical researchers, care professionals, clinicians and support groups (BTA); and artists and the general public (OVADA), will enable the project to engage with a wide range of stakeholders and benefit from the sharing of expertise. The project will also be aided by an advisory committee of two external collaborators: Professor of Hearing Sciences, David Baguley and Professor of Music, John Levack Drever. The first strand examines the aesthetics of tinnitus, critically reflecting upon aural, visual and rhetorical depictions in the arts. It involves a cross-disciplinary symposium, bringing together clinicians with arts, humanities and sciences academics, resulting in the development of a special issue of the journal The Senses and Society. The second strand explores how artistic methods adapted from soundwalking and sound-mapping can generate knowledge about the spatial, psychoacoustic and affective properties of tinnitus. It involves three one-day workshops with participants from the tinnitus community. These will be held in Sheffield, Oxford and London; and will offer a space to critically and creatively reflect upon how experiences of tinnitus are shared. The BTA and the advisory committee will help promote the workshops and offer practical guidance. Outcomes from the workshops will be hosted on an interactive, public-facing website, alongside work from the other strands of the project. The third strand involves the development of an art exhibition, facilitated by OVADA. Consisting of newly-commissioned work responding to the project's core themes, this will also interrogate how tinnitus and auraldiversity can inform curatorial and exhibition practice. Combining artistic methods, theoretical reflection and stakeholder engagement, this project makes an original contribution to discourses around health, medical science and the arts; and to important discussions about disability and accessibility in sound studies, arts theory and practice.

The acoustics industry contributes £4.6 billion to the UK's economy annually, employing more than 16,000 people, each generating over £65,000 in gross value added across over 750 companies nationwide. The productivity of acoustics industry is similar to that of other enabling technologies, for example the UK photonics industry (£62k per employee in 2014). Innovation through research in acoustics is a key to its industry success. The UK's acoustics industry and research feeds into many major global markets, including the $10 billion market for sound insulation materials in construction, $7.6 billion ultrasound equipment market and $31 billion market for voice recognition. This is before the vital role of acoustics in automotive, aerospace, marine and defence is taken into consideration, or that of the major UK industries that leverage acoustics expertise, or the indirect environmental and societal value of acoustics is considered. All the four Grand Challenges identified in the 2017 UK Industrial Strategy require acoustics innovation. The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF, https://www.ukri.org/innovation/industrial-strategychallenge-fund/) focuses on areas all of which need support from acoustics as an enabling technology. The future of acoustics research in the UK depends on its ability to contribute to the Four Grand Challenges. Numerous examples are emerging to demonstrate the central role of acoustics in addressing the four Grand Challenges and particularly through more focused research. The acoustics-related research base in the UK is internationally competitive, but it is important to continue to link this research directly to the four Grand Challenges. In this process, the role of UK Acoustics Network (UKAN) is very important. The Network unites over 870 members organised in 15 Special Interest Groups (www.acoustics.ac.uk) who represent industry, academia and various non-academic organisations which success relies on the quality of acoustics related research in the UK. UKAN was funded by the EPSRC as a standard Network grant with the explicit aim of pulling together the formerly disparate and disjoint acoustics community in the UK, across both industry and academia. UKAN has been remarkably successful. Its success is manifested in the large number of its members, numerous network events it has run since its inception in November 2017 and contribution it has made to the acoustics research community. Unfortunately, UKAN has not been in the position to fund new, pilot adventurous or translational projects nor has it any funding support for on-going research or knowledge transfer (KT) activities. The purpose of UKAN+ is to move beyond UKAN, create strategic connections between acoustics challenges and the Grand Challenges and to tackle these challenges through pilot studies leading in turn to full-scale grant proposals and systematic research and KT projects involving a wider acoustics community. There is a great opportunity for the future of the UK's acoustics related research to move on beyond this point, build upon the assembled critical mass and explore the trans-disciplinary work initiated by UKAN. Therefore, this proposal is for UKAN+ to take this community to the next stage, connect this Network more widely in the UK and internationally to contribute through coordinated research to the solution of Grand Challenges set by the government. UKAN+ will develop a new roadmap for acoustics research in the UK related to Grand Challenges, award exploratory (pilot) cross-disciplinary research projects to the wider community to support adventure research and knowledge transfer activities agreed in the roadmap and support the development of develop full-scale bids to the government research funding bodies which are aligned with the Grand Challenges. UKAN+ will also set up a National Centre or Coordination of Acoustics Research, achieve full sustainability and support best Equality, Diversity and Inclusion practices.