Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

15 April 2009

A new paper published this month by the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences calls for national leadership to bring the arts into Australia's innovation system.

The paper shows arguments for bringing the arts into innovation systems are based on building a culture of innovation and also on producing new knowledge through research in and through the arts. Creative industries have a significant contribution to make in economic activity.

Authors Professor Brad Haseman and Dr Luke Jaaniste investigate the arguments and challenges in aligning arts and cultural policies with Australian goals for research and innovation in The arts and Australia's national innovation system 1994-2008. It surveys key policy papers and recommendations since 1994 before outlining the challenges of the next phase of policy making.

Professor Haseman said the arts should be making a major contribution to knowledge production, application and diffusion.

"The paper shows that for much of the development of Australia's innovation system humanities arts and social sciences were in the margins, and excluded from participating in policy and funding support," he said.

Professor Haseman said that without national leadership in the area of arts and innovation, based on the lessons of the past two decades, the challenges would be addressed in an ad hoc and uncoordinated manner. "In whatever way a national agenda develops it is critical that the Australia Council plays a central facilitating role."

Major challenges in bringing the arts and innovation together are to:

• Include the arts in a national innovation council
• Strengthen the evidence base through better data collection and mapping, plus better use of research
• Better understanding of arts based knowledge and its impact
• Broader commercialisation of the arts and creative outputs
• Developing the argument for arts as social innovation
• Educating the innovation workforce for the arts.

Background

Professor Brad Haseman is Assistant Dean (Research) for the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology. In 2008 he was appointed to the Australia Council for the Arts where he chairs the Community Partnerships Committee.

Dr Luke Jaaniste is a visual and sound artist and cultural researcher. He is interested in ambience in contemporary practice and spatial theory.

"The arts and Australia's national innovation system 1994-2008" is a CHASS Occasional Paper, published by the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Visit www.chass.org.au.

The Council builds community recognition and resources for the Humanities, the Arts and the Social Sciences so they contribute fully to a prosperous, innovative, creative and inclusive Australia. CHASS has more than 100 members including universities, research centres, professional associations, arts training institutions and creative industry groups. They include the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, the Australian Academy of Humanities the Council for the Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities and the Australian Council for University Art and Design Schools.

 

For further comment: Helen O'Neil, Executive Director, CHASS, (02) 6201 2740