Listening across Disciplines is an Arts and Humanities Council (AHRC) funded network project which brings together artists, musicians, scientists, technologists and social scientists as well as scholars and practitioners from the humanities to work across disciplinary boundaries on the recently emerging focus on sound and listening

Through the framework of three network events key participants from a range of disciplines and professions, as well as stakeholders from education, press and health, students, Early Career Researchers and the general public, will conduct a cross disciplinary exploration of the status, method, and evaluation of listening. The participants will present, workshop and share their discipline specific application of listening; present its analytical, diagnostic or data gathering function; and debate the role of listening in the transfer of results and outcomes to other professionals and the general public.

The aim is to initiate a cross disciplinary exchange that draws together auditory research initiatives and methods from across the disciplines to advance its status and use. The principal and longer term aim of this network project is to establish a research hub that provides the infrastructure and shared terrain to develop and document, educate and disseminate information, guidelines and policies about listening as a methodology of investigation and communication in which culture and science can collide to generate new knowledge and innovative modes of knowledge production.

The issues under investigation are:

• The scholarly and public understanding of listening as a skill and methodology.
• The discipline specific applications of listening and how they can be shared
• The analytical, data gathering and diagnostic function of listening compared across the disciplines
• The legitimacy and evaluation of the heard for the arts and humanities and for science and technology disciplines
• The role of listening in the transfer of results and outcomes to other researchers, professionals and a general public.

The three network events, which perform key moments of enquiry each pursue a particular focus:

• Listening to the Environment focuses on ecological, geological, architectural and spatial concerns.
• Listening to Bodies and Materialities considers social and medical issues, anthropology and forensics.
• Listening to Language, Culture and Artefacts deliberates on speech and language, technology, museology and curation.