University Women In The Arts Launches Survey To Improve Transition From Studying In To Working In The Arts

University Women in the Arts, the mentoring scheme to help improve the transition for women from studying the arts to working in the arts, has announced the launch of the world first major survey on how to improve the transition for female arts students from studying the arts to working in the arts in the UK.

The survey is open to any woman who has studied an arts subject at foundation, undergraduate or postgraduate level in the UK at any time, including performing arts, design, visual arts and creative writing, and aims to help improve statistics which repeatedly show over 60% of arts students are female in the UK, and over 70% at the UK's leading arts universities, but only around 30% of professional playwrights, artists, directors and other roles at female.

The survey seeks to investigate what are the challenges facing women, as well as finding out what possible solutions might be.

Results will be passed to the government, universities and the arts industry to help inform change to improve the transition for women from studying the arts to working in the arts.

The survey is the culmination of a year's work at the University of Cambridge by University Women in the Arts, researching how to improve the transition for women from studying the arts to working in the arts.

Prospects, which reports on the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education data each year, stated in 2018, in terms of the arts: ""The question then would be - where do all the female graduates go? It's a question that is far too complex to go into in this article, but one that could and should be addressed."

Director of University Women in the Arts Jennifer Tuckett said: "Over the last year we have been working at the University of Cambridge to investigate how to improve the transition for women from studying the arts to working in the arts. This survey is the culmination of this research, aiming to investigate what challenges women are facing and explore what possible solutions to improving the transition might be. Coming from a single parent family myself, I know the sacrifices many students have to make when university courses are so expensive, which means it is vital we work together to improve the transition from studying the arts to working in the arts."

University Women in the Arts' mentors include 17 women leading the way in the arts in the UK including Vicky Featherstone, Artistic Director of The Royal Court Theatre; Kate Rowland, founder of the BBC's new writing department BBC Writersroom and former Creative Director of New Writing at the BBC; Anne Edyvean, Head of BBC Writersroom; Suzie de Rohan Willner, CEO of fashion company TOAST; Kate Bryan, presenter of "Portrait Artist of the Year" and "Landscape Artist of the Year"; Pinky Lilani, founder of the Women of the Future Programmes and cited as one of the 100 most influential women in the UK by Women's Hour; Elizabeth Freestone, former Artistic Director of Pentabus Theatre Company and co-author of The Guardian's 2012 investigation into women in theatre; Charlotte Higgins, Chief Culture Writer at The Guardian and co-author of The Guardian's 2012 investigation into women in theatre; Caroline Cooper Charles, film producer and former Head of Film at Creative England; Tanya Seghatchian, film producer, and former Head of the Film Fund at the UK Film Council and producer of the Harry Potter films amongst others; Jude Kelly, founder of the WOW Foundation and former Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre; Sue Parrish, Artistic Director of Sphinx Theatre Company.

This survey is also informed by the company's current year long project on abuse in the arts, run in partnership with Sphinx Theatre Company, Actor Awareness, Papergang Theatre/Kings College London/Pokfulam RD Productions, the University of Cambridge, GenPol, the gender equality think tank based at the University of Cambridge and supported by the Creative Industries Federation.

To complete the survey, please go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/universitywomeninthearts

More information on University Women In the Arts can be found at www.universitywomeninthearts.com

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