Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the following questions: in what sense does experimentation as improvisation lead to methodological innovation? What are the implications of artistic experimentation as improvisation for education and learning? Design/methodology/approach – The paper tracks the known concept within research of “experimentation” with a view to revealing how practice-led research in art works distinctively with experimentation. It proposes experimentation as improvisation drawing on a research project Sounding Drawing 2012 as an example. The paper situates art experimentation as improvisation in art (Cage, 1995) anthropology (Hallam and Ingold, 2007; Bateson, 1989) and the theoretical work of Arnheim (1986) on forms of cognition. Findings – Arts research as improvisation is participatory, relational and performative retaining the research subject in its life context. The artist as researcher starts with open-ended critical questions for which there are no known methods or immediate answer. By setting up boundary conditions from the outset and understanding the situatedness and contingencies of those conditions, the artist as improviser seeks ways of not only avoiding chaos and the arbitrary but also being trapped by what is already known. Originality/value – This approach is important within and beyond the arts because it consciously draws together different forms of cognition – intuition and relational knowledge and also sequential knowledge. It is also significant because it offers a different epistemology in which new knowledge emerges in the relationship between participants in the research taking form in co-creation. These qualities all position improvisation as a research paradigm and a counterpoint to positivism.

SMEs represent over 99% of businesses in the UK (BIS, 2010a). The importance of SMEs for a country's business and economic growth and the recognition of the problems they encounter have resulted in business support being provided for SMEs in most industrialised countries. The effectiveness of design support is often evaluated by examining the impact of design interventions on business and measured by using the standard business performance indicators, such as company survival, economic growth and job creation. Focusing on the measurement of outcomes may inform whether the programme is successful or not, but it may fail to reveal why and how. This research focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of design support by examining the design support discourse in order to understand the divide amongst SMEs, DSPs and design consultancies. In this discursive analysis, the author traces a number of specific themes from interview transcriptions (n=24), publicly available DSP case studies (n=21) and DSP reports (n=10) to provide a critical overview of the DSPs. Interviews used for the analysis were undertaken by the author with individuals representing SMEs, design consultancies, DSPs and government agencies. The findings of this study provide a critical discourse analysis on the effectiveness of DSPs and aim to improve the collaboration between SMEs and designers.

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