We know that many professional dance companies and vocational dance schools are frequently approached by researchers, undergraduate as well as postgraduate, to take part in their projects.

In order to help prevent these dancers suffering from ‘research fatigue’ and encourage participation in research that will significantly improve our understanding of what it takes to produce healthy, high performing dancers, the HDP has produced a checklist (below) for schools and companies to help you decide on the quality of research opportunities presented to you and prioritise those you take part in.

Checklist:

• Is the research at postgraduate level, with the intention for it to be published?
• Is the research applied research that will have a practical bearing on dancers' health, wellbeing, performance capabilities or education, on an individual level, organisational level or for the dance world at large?
• Is the researcher planning to or have they sought input from dance professionals in choosing what to research and/or designing the research?
• Is the researcher offering to provide feedback during and/or following the research that will be useful to the dancers and their work/training?
• Have you or the researcher sought advice from Dance UK’s HDP to ensure that this research project complements or adds to the research knowledge base and is not unnecessarily duplicating work already done?

If you can answer yes to these points it is likely to be worth your while taking part in a research project that may benefit dancers, company and the dance world at large.