Universities are complex organisational structures (comprised of semi-independent faculties, divisions, labs, and centres) with a mix of diverse professional and academic roles and cultures. In addition, universities are constantly transforming in response to global transformations and neoliberal pressures, which presents a complex workplace environment for creative work.

Recognising the tensions and ambiguities of the tertiary sector, Celia Whitchurch (2013) mapped the multi-dimensional experiences and processes of university-sited professional staff. She concluded that, to successfully pursue strategic goals and achieve beneficial outcomes in the face of uncertainty, professional staff who work in ‘university third space’ must become ‘unbounded’ and traverse university boundaries, and ‘blended’ as they negotiate academic and professional staff interactions.

While Whitchurch’s work on third space professionalism has been extended (by Veles & Carter, 2016; Smith et al., 2021; McIntosh & Nutt, 2022, for example) and now spans a broad range of professional fields, it does not take account of the unique and distinctive experiences of university-embedded creative digital marketing practitioners.

This professional Doctoral thesis addresses this gap.

Dr James Dillon applied a mixed methods approach.

This Queensland University of Technology (QUT) professional Doctorate research project commenced with a literature and contextual review to establish a foundational understanding of the fields of creative digital marketing practice, the HE sector, and third space professionalism.

To expand upon this established knowledge, semi-structured interviews were conducted with university marketing and communications directors, followed by a thematic analysis to identify exemplary practices, processes, and working principles.

Based on these dual analyses, a speculative process model and a set of practice principles were developed to map the key characteristics of ‘creative third space’.

These speculative principles were first tested through a hermeneutical analysis of two exemplar university integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaigns and brand stories drawn from the case studies.

Creative practice research was then applied to test the speculative ‘creative third space’ model and principles in (creative digital marketing) practice and in situ (a university context). A participatory communication method was employed to produce creative content (‘digital artefacts’) as part of a university/faculty IMC campaign. This includes four 360° cinematic virtual reality (CVR) brand stories; an integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaign; and a bespoke, mobile responsive, and multimodal web site, designed with the capacity for dynamic user-generated content (graduate profiles and user -generated social media content).

Finally, reflection enabled the considered refinement of the model and principles. The final thesis document offers an intimate perspective into my praxis, a space where theory is embodied and expressed within creative digital marketing practice. This integrated approach to interdisciplinary digital creative practices; marketing, communications, and brand strategy; and higher education professionalism has incrementally developed over time and reflects a layered, multidimensional professional background.

This professional Doctorate makes the following contributions:

• As an insider-researcher, Dr James Dillon integrated academic research into his place of work (an Australian university) to co-create and coordinate a content strategy and IMC campaign, a dynamic custom website with user-generated content capabilities, and four  360° cinematic virtual reality (CVR) videos (‘digital artefacts’) in 2017.
• A thesis document was published August 2024. Overall, this thesis’s final medium of communication represents the integrated crystallisation of academic rigour and creative expression. Its landscape presentation showcases a distinct visual design and rich multimodal media content. Written with a textual polyvocality that transitions between detached objectivity to my reflective, subjective voice, this thesis builds upon the polyvocal “heteroglossia” suggested by Hamilton (2011) and the multi-genre “crystalised” texts championed by Richardson (2000) and Ellingson (2009), both of whom call for cohesive structural integrity between genres, styles, and voices.
• Through systematic empirical research, this thesis has mapped the dimensions,
  processes and practices of a ‘creative third space’. A Creative Third Space Process Model with seven phases and seven practice principles tested in situ were defined and presented in the thesis. The Creative Third Space Process Model is publicly available for higher education professionals to apply in their own workplace.
• This project’s unique mix of qualitative methodologies and the integrated crystallisation
  (synthesis) of findings makes a new contribution to the field of practice-led research. The research provides an exemplar of interdisciplinary practice and the conscious bridging that is required to work between modalities of practice.