Comics as Research, Comics for Impact: The Case of Higher Fees, Higher Debts

Abstract

Researchers have turned to comics as outputs incorporating their research findings. These comics are print and/or online publications that can lead to the wider adoption of research and enhance educational practices, widen public engagement, and improve the possibilities for research to influence public policy.

This article presents an interview with Professor Katy Vigurs about Higher Fees, Higher Debts: Greater Expectations of Graduate Futures?, a comic based on a research report produced for the Society for Research into Higher Education (2016).

In order to contextualize the interview, this article also provides an introduction to non-fiction comics research, and concludes with reflections on comics as a way of doing research. This article seeks to document and encourage further knowledge-exchange between the higher education sector and comics practitioners, and between researchers using comics in their research or as a means to disseminate their own research and those scholars who research comics as their main object of study.