Thank you to DDCA for the opportunity to contribute to discussion about the evaluation of Non-Traditional Research Outputs (NTROs) in academe, following the recent DDCA National Forum focusing related issues. We respond, in conversation.
Julia:
In recent days I’ve begun reading the new edition of The Stinging Fly. New Writers. New Writing (2024), contemplating the collection as it reflects (and refracts) the ‘vibe’ of various collections I’ve read recently – considering the ways in which authorial presence and purpose reflects the minds’ eyes’ of writers and, more particularly, the way writing (fiction, poetry, essays, in this case) might represent a tension in the perception of the author-narrator, brought to the page to facilitate the reader’s experiential engagement with highly-complex subject matter and themes. In reading, I’m taken with the highly provocative manner whereby deftly constructed creative writing incites the reader’s engagement through narratorial presence (often a plural narratorial presence), provoking a vast constellation of emotional responses.
In her introduction to this collection, Lisa McInerney (ed.) contemplates the weather: ‘an unusually long winter […] in Ireland’ (2024, 6) – divulging her personal response to the climate, laying bare her perceived defects, contemplating her fallibility, as an avenue for a metaphorical contemplation of the collection as a reflection of a climate.
What’s my point? McInerney’s approach mirrors my intention and doubles as a disclaimer – my thoughts are a reflection of the climate for evaluating NTROs as I have experienced them, for considering Creative Practice Research and university cultures as they relate to equitable and inclusive practices for NTRO and ERA submissions. In particular, my reflections focus my experience, limited to the past decade.
As I think upon what I might say, here, I think of why and how – of the why of creative practice, together with my role as a writer-academic: the complex how of assessing the merits of creative practice outputs, as research. I consider these things not only from the perspective of having my own NTROs assessed, but also from the perspective of having been invited to review research statements; share models of practice and assessment at my home university, and; act as an external assessor for NTROs, submitted for evaluation at other universities.
I begin with the why of the creative work, for me personally …
Recently, I contributed to a multi-authored project, creative responses to work of Ania Walwicz (initiated by Francesca Rendle Short and Quinn Eades). As the project drew to a close, contributors were asked for a one-sentence bio. We were encouraged to be as creative as we liked. I read the email request in a short break between a lecture and a meeting, responding without thought: ‘Julia Prendergast is a writer-academic who lives by this advice: “Don’t you ever fucking forget why you got that job, Julia, because you are a writer”’.
This leads me to the how as it relates to my role as a writer-academic, considering the assessment of NTROs in the university context, which encompasses my rumination upon the why of creative practice for us, more broadly.
My guiding principles are equity, parity, and transparency.
What does this mean? That is, how so in practice?
I rarely, if ever, discuss practice-led research with students (at either undergraduate or postgraduate level) without talking about Jen’s deft analysis of the activities involved in for into and through (Webb 2008, 1-2). My version of how, in the NTRO sphere, aims at for-into-through via deep engagement with Webb’s identification of the logic, principles, and processes involved in these activities (ibid.).
HOW?
By sharing: my own NTRO statements, including failed and iterative drafts, aiming to illustrate the way I’ve toiled with the material, as well as the lessons ensuing.
By responding: relaying detailed practices at my home university for evaluating NTROs (noting that I consider myself fortunate to work in a multi-disciplinary school where creative practice outputs are valued and rewarded, in a university where NTROs are ranked via a model that mimics Q-ranking for TRO publications, and workloaded accordingly).
By engaging: accepting invitations to act as an external reviewer for NTROs in other universities; writing in support of precariously-employed colleagues seeking funding for NTRO labour, as research; speaking (as precisely as possible) to the value of NTROs in applications for promotion (often reviewed by colleagues who are not necessarily versed in NTRO evaluation).
Considering why and how, together, I support (continued) vigilant discussion focusing various models and practices, including the opportunity to divulge personal responses to the climate and lay bare perceived defects – NOT with a view to critical reflection for-the-sake-of, but rather with a view to collective deliberation upon limitations and possibilities as avenues for proactive revolution. I see this as an opportunity to offer recommendations for a sector-wide, best-practice model, including consideration of the role of external assessors, considered experts in any given field of practice.
As previously flagged, my reflections are restricted to the past decade. With this in mind, I invite Jen to weigh in. As a writer-academic, Jen’s experience spans many moons. She has been active in producing creative work, in a variety of forms, across many decades. Further, Jen has vast expertise in university governance practices, across a similarly expansive period. On numerous occasions, I have approached Jen to discuss NTRO matters. Most recently I invited Jen to represent AAWP at INDABA (Academic Publishing Indaba 2024: ‘Charting the Emerging Frontiers of Scholarly Communication’). At this conference, Jen’s presentation focused the evolving context and practices for assessing NTROs, in Australian universities.
Before we turn to Jen, I return to McInerney. At the close of her introduction to the most recent edition of The Stinging Fly, McInerney pays homage to poetry editor, Anne Marie Ní Churreáin. Upon receiving Ní Churreáin’s selections for the issue, McInerney ‘was excited to learn that she’d ordered the pieces in such a way as to “create a journey that opens with a dark rising and ends in light rising”’ (2024, 7). On this note, I turn to Jen, which is to say, enough-from-me – What do you make of the weather, Jen?
Jen:
How’s the weather? Gusty, with storm clouds overhead. Extreme weather expected.
Or: what can Thomas Hobbes tell us about the role and identity of NTROs and their makers in the community of Australian universities?
Hobbes (1929 [1651]) famously posited a commonwealth where all members are born free, and equal, and therefore participate freely, under the framework of the social contract. Or rather, where all are equal because prior consent to its rules and categories, principles and practices is presumed, whether there was consent or not. Equal, in fact, in that all have implicitly agreed to being dominated by the state/monarch/Leviathan in exchange for the benefits of membership. Equal insofar as those who are not equal don’t embarrass or annoy those in power by pointing out the inequities in society, the inequalities of access, and the absence of any real consent.
Or, as Orwell famously put it, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others (1985, 123).
All academics are equal and all research outputs are equal; but some are more equal than others. And those who are among the less equal are there because they are different; they are among the exception, and exceptions are easily excluded.
This is a reality for most, if not all, creative academics in Australia.
We participate in a version of the Hobbesian contract because we don’t reliably fit the definition of the academic.
Mostly we don’t work (much) with numbers or (at all) with statistics. Mostly we don’t (frequently) publish in Q1 journals and instead (often) write books or book chapters. Consistently we produce things that don’t look like research: collections of poems; artist books; strange objects. Few of our creative outputs appear in SciVal analyses; few citations of our works attract field-weighted citation impact scores; and few university research office staff understand what it is we do, and how our work might be evaluated.
Our work is accepted under a codicil, rather than as of right. And, after the ERA decade where NTROs had an official identity, they have returned to being characterised by the N in the acronym: they are non.
So: how’s the weather? Not great.
So what do we do about it? Take an umbrella, wear a raincoat, duck under rooflines and behind shelters.
There is always weather, but we do know how to navigate it.
There are always institutional rules, frameworks, unreasonable processes, but we are capable of navigating them.
First, through tactical compliance. For me, this is predicated on the fact that I am employed by a university in part because I am a poet, in part because I am an academic. I’ve signed a contract to deliver on teaching and research, service and engagement, and that is what I deliver. So to avoid the rain and storms, I write peer reviewed articles or book chapters on the topic that mobilised and motivated my creative outputs. Providing proofs in the form that Leviathan can recognise. Working tactically; which is to say, following Michel de Certeau, by ‘insinuating’ myself and my work into the space of the establishment, the space of power (1984, xix).
Next, through strategizing. Because by adopting the garments of Leviathan, it is possible to present as less characterised by difference, as more aligned with the expectations of the contract; and in this way, infuse the non with a (qualified) yes. My late colleague Ross Gibson and I designed a model for the evaluation of the research quality of NTROs using the language of research policy: assessment, validation, relevance, significance, contribution. While this is implemented only in part, it has provided a perhaps shaky, but nonetheless available, foundation for the recognition of NTROs.
Works cited
Certeau M de 1984, The Practice of Everyday Life (trans S Rendall), Berkeley: University of California Press
Hobbes T 1929 [1651] Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil (ed. WG Pogson Smith), Oxford: Clarenden Press
McInerney L (ed.) 2024, The Stinging Fly. New Writers. New Writing. Issue 50. Vol. 2. Summer 2024.
Orwell G 1985 Animal Farm, London: Methuen
Webb J 2008, ‘Brief notes on Practice-led Research’, The Australasian Association of Writing Programs: https://aawp.org.au/
Julia Prendergast lives in Melbourne, Australia, on unceded Wurundjeri land. Julia’s novel, The Earth Does Not Get Fat (2018) was longlisted for the Indie Book Awards (debut fiction). Her short story collection, Bloodrust and Other Stories, was published in 2022. Julia is a practice-led researcher – an enthusiastic supporter of transdisciplinary, collaborative research practices, with a particular interest in neuro|psychoanalytic approaches to creative writing. She is President|Chair of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP), the peak academic body representing the discipline of Creative Writing (Australasia). Julia is Associate Professor and Discipline Leader (Creative Writing, Literature, and Publishing) at Swinburne University, Melbourne.
Jen Webb lives on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country, in Canberra, ACT. Her most recent poetry collection, The Daily News, was published by Recent Work Press earlier this year, and her most recent (co-authored) scholarly volume, Gender and the Creative Labour Market, was published by Palgrave in 2022. Jen is currently working on the issue of how creative practice operates to deliver health and wellbeing to individuals and communities. She is the treasurer of the AAWP, and lead for the Master of Creative Industries at the University of Canberra.