Arts get more research money (for now)

Creative arts and humanities are receiving more research funding thanks to a rule change but the good news may not last.

The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the Federal Government body which funds research. Most of its money goes to science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (known as STEM).

In a gain for humanities, arts and social science (known as HASS), the ARC last year altered its rules to make it clear that humanity, culture and society were part of the ‘stock of knowledge’ for which it will fund research.

The ruling followed the landmark decision by the ARC in 2011 to add a fifth National Research Priority – the only HASS-based Priority – ‘Understanding cultures and communities’.

The value of this ruling to the arts and humanities is now clear with improved funding outcomes in both February and June funding rounds.

But in disappointing news for the arts and culture sector when research priorities were recast last month, ‘Understanding cultures and communities’ was nowhere to be seen. The new priorities are more broadly cast with a stronger economic focus and no specific mention of culture or community.

That’s not to say the new research priorities cannot be interpreted to advantage the sector.

There is some hope for the arts and culture sector in the priority ‘Securing Australia’s place in a changing world’ if it is broadly interpreted. The previous priorities included the clearly physical aim of ‘Safeguarding Australia’, while the concept of a place in a changing world may be interpreted to include economic and culture sustainability as well.

Similarly the old priority ‘Promoting and maintaining good health’ has been replaced with ‘Promoting population health and wellbeing’ and any number studies show the value of arts and culture to mental health and wellbeing.

For now arts and humanities projects are doing well.  In the ARC Linkage project funding round announced last month projects in performing arts, art theory and architecture were among those funded, along with projects in ecology, chemistry and genetics.

Comedy – no laughing matter, a project identifying and preserving the history of comedy in Melbourne from the 1960s through the 1980s, by the Victorian Arts Centre Trust, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Arts Victoria  and the University of Melbourne received $150,000 over four years.

A study of the architecture of Australia’s Muslim pioneers, a joint project of the South Australian Museum, International Islamic University in Malaysia and the University of received $182,451 over four years.

The National Gallery of Victoria and University of Melbourne received $150,000 over four years for an art theory and criticism project examining the transformation of  identity in Australian and British portraits from 1700-1900.

But the next round will be the first since 2011 without a culture and communities priority.

The old priorities were:

1. An environmentally sustainable Australia
2. Promoting and maintaining good health
3. Frontier technologies for building and transforming Australian industries
4. Safeguarding Australia
5. Understanding cultures and communities

The new priorities are:

1. Promoting population health and wellbeing
2. Lifting productivity and economic growth
3. Securing Australia’s place in a changing world
4. Managing our food and water wastes.