ICASP Project Team History

The Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice (ICASP) project launched in 2007 as part of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Major Collaborative Research Initiative. The original seven-year project focussed on issues raised by seven areas related to improvisation: law and justice; pedagogy; social policy; transcultural understanding; gender and the body; text and media; and social aesthetics. The team included 35 researchers from 19 institutions and over 20 community-based partners.

The ICASP project included the following outputs:

  • 169 articles published in the online journal Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation
  • a comprehensive research library
  • 17 postdoctoral fellowships
  • 3 Summer Institutes
  • 5 Books
  • Reading groups
  • 5 Improvisers-in-Residence
  • Over 25 international colloquia

A full list of ICASP activities is available on the Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice website at www.improvcommunity.ca.

The next phase was an expansion of the research team and formalization of research activity through the establishment of an Institute. The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation now includes 58 researchers across 20 institutions and more than 30 community-based organizations.