16 November 2009

The path to leadership in Australia - through the Arts faculty.

In 2009 Australia's political leaders share a common qualification. Not an MBA, not a law degree. A Bachelor of Arts.

Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has a BA, built around his well-known specialisation in the Chinese language. Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Minister for Finance Lindsay Tanner also hold Bachelor of Arts degrees, as do many other Cabinet members, including Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Senator Kim Carr. The Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull also has an Arts degree and while his Deputy Julie Bishop is a straight law graduate,, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey and Shadow Minister for Finance Helen Coonan have graduated from Arts Faculties too.

The current generation of parliamentary leaders were among the baby boomers who took advantage of new university places in the 1970s and 80s and discovered that broad training in the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) gave them the skills for participating in public life. The investigation of human behaviour, exploration of the workings and content of our cultures, and training in methodologies for measuring and analysing human societies provided vital education skills for issues management and public policy making. Law and business qualifications, too, round out the HASS contribution to the learning and skills of our current political leaders.

Australia has an urgent need to further boost productivity growth, and to achieve this the Rudd government has set ambitious targets for higher education participation and is investing heavily in research and innovation. So the pressure is on to investigate and explore our society and economic systems to find where and how Australians should meet the raft of challenges in environmental sustainability, education, international security and social cohesion. The time is right to invest in the humanities, arts and social sciences disciplines which specialise in this work about human behaviour - and the range and depth of research in HASS disciplines has increased since Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard graduated.

The result will see the emergence of a new generation of national leaders, trained to be innovative critical and integrated in their approach to knowledge, and capable of taking our national research effort to a new level. Australia has long specialised in producing good researchers, artists, designers, social scientists. However, as the Government's Powering Ideas innovation agenda points out, "Australia has shown that it can produce world-beating innovations, but we have never done it enough, and it is getting harder all the time."

This week more than 100 researchers, educators, designers, artists and professional practitioners from the HASS areas meet in Canberra to discuss how to promote, disseminate and exchange their research and skills. HASS on the Hill is an exercise in knowledge transfer, and a determined campaign to explain the value of HASS knowledge and skills.

A key session will bring senior public servants and the Chief Scientist together with HASS researchers to develop a better Australian model for building bridges between researchers and policy makers and between HASS researchers and those in the natural sciences. In the UK, the Blair government and the new Scottish Government have appointed Chief Social Researchers to build these bridges to the humanities and social sciences. The initiative deserves the attention of the Rudd Government's current public sector reform exercise under Terry Moran, which is looking at how to build in new ideas and perspectives from academia.

The HASS on the Hill researchers will be meeting with individual MPs and Senators from all parties in an exercise designed to boost the flow of knowledge between researchers and the elected policy makers who set directions for cultural, economic, social, health and education policy. The MPs and Senators have sought meetings with HASS researchers from across the broad spectrum: environmental researchers, specialists in education, rural affairs, religion, Indigenous issues, arts and design, public health and international security - a heartening reflection of a thirst for new ideas and research evidence which should make these meetings lively and substantial. Experts in languages and social inclusion in education will also be present to help tackle these two areas of current policy priority. Classical scholars, philosophers, historians, architects and artists are also opening the collaboration for problem solving

The HASS on the Hill event is backed by the universities in the Go8 group and the Innovation Research Universities, who are all well aware of the potential in building these bridges, as well as institutions already in the business of linking arts and social sciences with technological research and development, like the University of Technology, Sydney and RMIT University. The Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research is a Government Partner.

Innovation debate in Australia too often terminates in the quest for the Next Big Thing in technology. But increasingly, business is focussing on the design and development aspects of innovation, or innovation in the services sector; while the public sector needs a constant flow of qualitative information and evidence on whether its policies work, and indeed in making good policy. The HASS sector is uniquely well placed to meet such needs.

For example, in the critical area of bushfire control and prevention, urban planners and communications specialists need to join ecologists and other natural scientists.

The first HASS on the Hill meetings took place in 2003, at a time when the HASS disciplines were specifically excluded from many research investment programs and Research and Development tax concessions. The culture wars left humanities specialists and artists forced into defensive positions over their contribution to Australia and its rich cultural traditions in both settler communities and indigenous areas.

With the new urgency and focus on research and innovation, that defensive attitude is receding. Of the one million plus students enrolled in Australian universities, nearly 60 per cent are in humanities, creative arts and social sciences. There are nearly as many creative arts students as there are engineering pupils. Among them is that new generation of leaders in public life, and more innovators, educators, managers and designers who will be key contributors to Australia. The Arts and Social Sciences faculties will be drivers in the knowledge economy.

Helen O'Neil
Executive Director - Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

 

This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review on Monday, 26 October 2009.

 

For more information, please contact:

Executive Director

Council of the Humanties, Arts and Social Sciences

Phone: +61 2 6201 2740

director@chass.org.au