Rhythm Changes: Jazz and National Identitiesbegan as a three-year transnational interdisciplinary research project (2010-2013), funded by the HERA Joint Research Programme (Humanities in the European Research Area). Walter van de Leur was a co-applicant, and Principal Investigator and Senior Researcher on behalf of the University of Amsterdam and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Other participants (13 in total) came from the universities of Salford, Graz, Stavanger, and Copenhagen. The research focused specifically on the questions as mentioned above.

The Rhythm Changes team (now Birmingham, Liverpool, Graz, and Amsterdam) organizes an international jazz research conference every eighteen months, which is the largest in the field with some 150 participants from thirty countries. The CvA hosted it in 2011, 2014, and 2017 and will do so again in 2022.

Through the extensive, international Rhythm-Changes network of universities, conservatories and jazz archives, the chair continues to be involved in other projects and successful applications, such as CHIME, and Jazz and Everyday Aesthetics. Outputs: thesis by Loes Rusch(research on cultural politics and jazz education in the Netherlands), seven conferences, dozens of conference presentations, and various publications.