Building upon their Write Now Writing in the Disciplines initiative, Writing Design, Dr Dipti Bhagat (course leader in Design at the London Met Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design) and Dr Peter O’Neill (Write Now lecturer in Academic Writing) have been chosen to edit a collection of the best Widening Participation Research. This volume is commissioned by the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design (CHEAD), the National Art Learning Network (NALN), The Arts Council England (ACE) and the Higher Education Academy subject centre in Art, Design and Media (HEA-ADM) and will be published in 2010.

The aim of the volume is to make this research available to all HE practitioners (not just widening participation specialists) and to argue that all HE practitioners should engage with WP as their own concern. The collection surveys for a general academic audience the key WP texts and then anthologises discursive essays which encourage practitioners to reflect on how they can support WP through their own practice and teaching.

The work was presented at the meeting of the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design in November 2009. Further presentations will take place at the National Art Learning Network conference in February 2010 and at the Centre for Learning and Teaching in Art and Design (Cltad) conference “Challenging the curriculum: exploring discipline boundaries in art, design and media” in Berlin in April 2010.