Mobilising a strong theoretical background (history of art, social sciences, aesthetics, semiology and, more generally, all scientific disciplines), the research is deployed within a work of artistic creation, through the processes, languages and methods of artistic practices. This research policy is based on the postulate that a critical and reflective investigative approach can be deployed outside of written analysis alone, but also, and above all, through creation in art and design.

The research carried out at ésam Caen/Cherbourg is deployed in projects led by the school’s teachers, as well as in the practice-led Phd RADIAN, one of the few PhD in France offering to conduct research through artistic creation.

Since 2019, in collaboration with the École supérieure d’art et Design Le Havre-Rouen (ESADHaR) and the École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Normandie (ENSA Normandie), ésam Caen/Cherbourg also publishes the journal RADIAL, an artistic research journal. The first issue (2019) was entitled En finir avec le post-internet ("Getting rid of the post-internet") ; the second issue (2020) is entitled L’image sans qualités ("the image without qualities").

ésam Caen/Cherbourg also participates in Creator Doctus, a European network bringing together art and design schools in some fifteen countries to implement postgraduate courses and doctorates in artistic creation.