CHASS Strategic Plan 2009-2012

September 2009

The CHASS Board has finalised the Council's three year Strategic Plan, confirming programs to advance our three key priority areas - promotion, advocacy and providing a coordinating forum for practitioners and professionals, artists and business, academic researchers and sector leaders in HASS. The ambitious schedule is set around a core vision to assist the humanities, arts and social sciences contribute fully to a prosperous, innovative, creative and inclusive society.

The full Strategic Plan 2009-2012 is available for download and the Board looks forward to discussing the Plan with member organisations.

Download the Strategic Plan
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Vision

Australia invests in developing its knowledge and skills in the humanities, arts and social sciences so they contribute fully to a prosperous, innovative, creative and inclusive economy and society.

Mission

CHASS promotes and advocates for the humanities, arts and social sciences and provides a coordinating forum for academics, students, business, practitioners and the broader community.

Goals and initiatives

• Goal 1
  Build recognition for and promote the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences so they contribute fully to a prosperous, innovative, creative and inclusive Australia.
• Goal 2
  Advocate for improved policy settings and resources for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
• Goal 3
  Build innovative capacity of Australia through linkages between the humanities, arts and social sciences, and science, technology, engineering and medicine and with the business and public sector.
• Goal 4
  Provide a coordinating forum for discussion in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences sector in Australia.
• Goal 5
  Support member organisations.
• Goal 6
  Ensure organisational sustainability.

Strategic Plan

Over the next four years the Council will continue to build government and community recognition and resources for the Humanities, the Arts and the Social Sciences (HASS). It will support member organisations in building Australian knowledge, skills and talent in the humanities, arts and social sciences, particularly through research and development.

This plan sets six goals for work over 2009-2012. These will be reached through the implementation of programs based on the Council's three key tasks of promotion, advocacy and providing a coordinating forum for the HASS sector.

In promotion, building recognition for the humanities, arts and social sciences will rest on a media and networking strategy to build community understanding of the sector's role in the national innovation system and how it underpins the development of our society, culture and individual identity. A second part of the strategy to build recognition of the sector's value will be a program to foster knowledge transfer, in which CHASS will bring researchers together with industry and policy makers to discuss how HASS research contributes to addressing key issues in Australian society and policy development.

In advocacy, CHASS will use its resources to collate and coordinate the research and policy analysis of member organisations to help the HASS networks contribute to strong policy in research and research training, innovation and the creative arts. These are the policies which determine the future strength and depth of the sector. Unified comprehensive input from the sector is needed as policy reform continues at a high speed in innovation, the arts and areas impacting on tertiary education. With a rapidly changing national policy environment, CHASS will regularly review its advocacy to ensure it is timely, relevant and reflects member priorities.

Building on the base established in its first five years, CHASS's new strategic plan is seeking to extend its role as a coordinating forum for the sector and to bring HASS research to bear on solving the major challenges before the economy and sector. It wants to support the building of an evidence base on the costs and benefits of HASS research to underpin research and innovation policy.

Later years of the plan will see further development of communications in the CHASS network, and a program through which to bring timely, useful information to members, and for members to pass on their own messages to the network.

The Council has allocated resources to look at new ways of distributing its publications and research, and to build its knowledge broking role. It will also consider investing in developing HASS on the Hill into an umbrella event for member organisations holding their own workshops and conferences at the same time.

The proposed development of 'HASS On The Hill' into an event which can provide a forum for member organisations for both discipline specific and multidisciplinary discussion is based on international models. CHASS will consult members on how to progress this.

Over 2009, CHASS has reassessed and renewed its mission and overarching goals. In addition CHASS has in 2009 already strengthened its governance structure, and worked to set up new more transparent and logical categories for membership. The basis for this exercise and the Strategic Plan is the external review of CHASS carried out in 2008 (Illing Report), an examination of the purposes of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 grant to the organisation and an analysis of the Federal policy initiatives underway and foreshadowed in innovation, creative arts and education. These initiatives will need well researched and debated input from the HASS sector.

For more information, please contact:

Helen O'Neil

Executive Director

Council of the Humanties, Arts and Social Sciences

Phone: +61 2 6249 1995

director [at] chass.org.au