Performing arts in the academy: withering on the vine?

BY CAT HOPE — Despite an increasing number of artist scholars in the performing arts – those who have higher degree qualifications featuring the creative project/ exegesis model – are being employed in universities, it seems as if scholarly recognition for the so called ‘non traditional research output’ (NTRO) is in decline.

This could be happening for four reasons. Firstly, NTRO submissions require considerable work to be approved as such. In addition to sourcing funding, making and showing the work itself, most NTRO creators must then construct a concise research statement, submitted for approval as research by university panels. This is before it gets to the ERA stage, where if selected for submission there, it is subject to yet another round of peer review. This is a lot more ‘justification’ than authors of ‘traditional research outputs’ (TROs) are expected to produce, resulting in staff submitting less NTROs.

Secondly, if an NTRO’s success as a scholarly output is in part tied to external income coming to the university, we should exercise caution around what that income is used for. We should leverage the physical, technical and administrative infrastructure of the university as in-kind support in our grant applications, and ensure arts grants submitted via the University prioritise independent artist wages. Whilst many are keen to do this, they are often hindered by cumbersome university bureaucracy. As a result, they make work outside the university, thus reducing income aligned with artist researchers.

Thirdly, there are few critical review outlets available to cover the performing arts. This means impact is difficult to identify outside repeat performance invitations and audience response surveys, which again falls to the project creators to collate. Whilst many NTRO creators are expected to gather and justify their own data to demonstrate impact, most TRO authors benefit from products universities purchase to track and weigh their citations and impact.

Finally, there has been no revision of the NTRO design by the Australian Research Council since it was introduced to the academy, though one is immanent following the sudden suspension of the 2023 ERA collection. My time on the college of experts (2017-2020) was insightful – it was often iterated that artists’ methods were supported but in reality, they required much more justification than other approaches. It is notable how few performing arts scholars there are on the current college membership. Further, recent data on the number of Discovery  project submissions show a steady decline in the performing arts Field of Research (FoR) codes. Recent DECRA and DP rounds show few applications to, and practically no success in, the performing arts FoRs. Yet performing arts appear in the project design of other disciplines. 

All this is a dangerous trend –  in taking our research practice out of the university, and badging our research outside our field, we are leaving our discipline dangerously underrepresented in the national research agenda. Yet we need to act  before our field is reduced to servicing other disciplines, and value of our work becomes invisible in the academy.


Cat Hope is Research Director and Professor of Composition at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance, Monash University. A leading International scholar examining digital notation, gender representation, experimentation and digital archiving for music, Cat is also an expert in practice based methodologies for music. Cat is currently a Chief Investigator on the European Research Council’s “Digi-Score” project (2020-26), and sites on a range of peer review panels for conferences and journals, as well as the the European Science Foundation and Bloomsbury Academic.

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Artists in academia

BY BEATA BATOROWICZ — provocations on traversing research and industry success within creative practice.

The ‘tension’ between industry and

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BY SMILJANA GLISOVIC — On August 9, 2024 the DDCA held a National Forum to generate discussion on the shape of the future of creative practice research in Australia (and beyond). The particular focus of the event was on research evaluation and assessment, chosen because of the current reviews of ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia).
BY MIA LINDGREN — I asked AI to give me a list of words including the prefix ‘non’: non-profit, non-negotiable, non-essential and so on. The non prefix is used to indicate the opposite, absence or exclusion of the root words, meaning it signals a deviation from the standard, typical or expected.
BY JESSICA WILKINSON — In the ERA 2018 exercise I was invited to be an assessor for the Creative Writing field. Of the five universities assigned to me for assessment of submissions within this code, I encountered wildly different approaches to how each university collated the 'top 30%' of representative samples.
BY BEATA BATOROWICZ — provocations on traversing research and industry success within creative practice. The ‘tension’ between industry and academia, in addition to having diverse roles within the broader creative arts research ecology of development and contribution, also describes an interconnectedness: they both feed into each other in building notions of success.
BY CRAIG BATTY — Do we agree on what we are looking for in research assessment in creative disciplines? As a DASSH survey in 2018 revealed, assessors (at least those surveyed) had mixed views about what was important – from theoretical contributions, to industry contributions, to hybrid contributions, and so on – the caveat ‘it depends’ came up strongly.
BY DAVID CROSS — Oh, to be world standard. To have reached the peak of global creative practice. To have left behind the parochialism of local concerns and made it in the places, contexts and ruthlessly competitive environments that truly matter.
Thank you to all that so generously and respectfully contributed to the conversation on the day of the National Online Forum, both ‘on mic’ and in ‘the chat’. The contributions in the below text are not assigned to individuals but rather the general threads and themes are summarised. For more nuance (and less unintended interpretive valence from me) I do encourage you to watch the recording of the forum here.
BY JULIA PRENDERGAST and JEN WEBB — Let us begin by introducing ourselves: we are Associate Professor Julia Prendergast, AAWP President/Chair, and Distinguished Professor Jen Webb, AAWP Treasurer – accepting the invitation to contribute on behalf of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP), the peak academic body representing the discipline of creative writing (Australasia).
BY VERONIKA KELLY and CHARLES ROBB for ACUADS — The Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools (ACUADS) is the nation’s peak organisation representing the interests of art and design schools within Australian higher education. Here, ACUADS draws attention to issues surrounding the interpretation and positioning of ‘world standard’ in creative practice research.
BY SUSAN KERRIGAN for ASPERA — Australian Screen Production Education and Australian Screen Production Education and Research Association (ASPERA) has contributed greatly to the creation and assessment of Creative Practice Research (CPR) in Screen Production disciplines. This work began with the creation of the peak disciplinary body two decades ago, at that time only one person in the gathering held a PhD and was considered to be a legitimate researcher by the academy.
BY CHARLES ROBB — When news broke that Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2023 had been cancelled, a palpable wave of relief swept through Australian universities – no more laborious compilation of packages, impact statements, and ranking spreadsheets.
BY SMILJANA GLISOVIC and CRAIG BATTY — The discussion amongst colleagues at the DDCA National Forum on evaluation and assessment of creative practice research – where more than 100 from a range of disciplines were in attendance – was informed, considered and encouraging.
BY ANDREA RASSELL and JO POLLITT — In thinking about the development of a standardisation of assessment of creative research, we, as interdisciplinary artist scholars practising respectively in filmmaking/media and choreographic writing/dance/feminist environmental humanities, are constantly reforming our identities as researchers and artists.