Research in Music

Research in Music at The Open University aligns with the university’s mission for social justice and openness by engaging with musical practices, people, experiences and places that have often been unacknowledged or misrepresented in academic research. Our research aims to account for the diversity of musical experience and to examine common-held values and prejudices associated with music practices in present-day and historical society.

Spanning musicology, ethnomusicology, music education, music technology, popular music and sound studies, our areas of research specialism include: 

• The Body, Emotions and Faith
• Music, Social Difference and Identity
• Places, Publics, Communities and Environments
• Music, Media and Creativity
• Music Education
• The Music Industries

Collaborating with communities and organisations worldwide is central to our research and has been supported by the university’s Open Societal Challenges programme. Researchers in the Music department form a core part of the Music and Sound Research Hub, which brings together scholars working in this field across The Open University. Further information about our academic team and their specialisms can be found on their staff profiles. We also have a thriving community of PhD students who contribute to the research environment of the department through their ground-breaking research.

Our publications

Our most recent publications can be viewed in the listing below from The Open University’s repository Open Research Online (ORO). We believe that research should be as accessible to as many people as possible – you can read some of our publications for free via publishers’ websites and ORO.