Creative arts research : a long path to acceptance

The majority of tertiary practice-led creative arts disciplines became part of the Australian university system as a result of the creation of the Unified National System of tertiary education in 1988. Over the past two decades, research has grown as the yardstick by which academic performance in the Australian university sector is recognised and rewarded. Academics in artistic disciplines, who struggled to adapt to a culture and workload expectations different from their previous, predominantly teaching based, employment, continue to see their research under-valued within the established evaluation framework. Despite a late 1990s Australian government funded inquiry, many of the inequities remain. While the Excellence in Research in Australia (ERA) exercise has acknowledged the non-text outputs of artist-academics in its evaluation of 'research outcomes', much of the process remains resolutely framed by measures that work against creative arts researchers.