Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

The arts and Australia's national innovation system 1994 - 2008
arguments, recommendations, challenges

Brad Haseman and Luke Jaaniste

November 2008

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Executive summary

Based on 15 years of arts and innovation literature, this paper explores the central proposition that the arts sector - particularly the performing arts, visual arts and crafts, new media arts and creative writing - should be included in Australian Government innovation policy development and play a significant role in national innovation.

After a brief overview of innovation policy and the national innovation systems approach in Australia, we examine the marginal place of the arts in Australia's innovation agenda and various attempts to include them. We identify the principal voices that have argued for arts and innovation development: the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) sector, digital content industries, arts education and university research, and new media arts. After three main periods of arts and innovation policy activity from the mid.1990s (when the importance of innovation as a key driver of Australia's prosperity was recognised) to early 2008, a fourth period has opened up as part of the Australian Government's Review of the National Innovation System in 2008.

We have identified 31 documents that make up the core 'arts and innovation' literature in Australia, and from them we have extracted the central proposition advanced to include the arts in the innovation agenda. That proposition appears in two forms:

• one connects innovation to the cultural sector at large (the arts, design, cultural institutions, traditional and new media, linked to the broader humanities) - namely, that 'culture … makes an essential contribution to innovation' (Creative nation 1994, Introduction)
• another connects innovation to the arts in particular.namely, that 'Australian artists and creative practitioners … play a vital role in enhancing and growing Australia's innovation economy' (Creative innovation strategy 2006, 1).

We present six arguments exploring the place of the arts in Australia's national innovation system:

• the cultural argument: the arts create and promote an atmosphere of innovation
• the skills argument: a rich and immersive arts education builds the skills required of a future innovative workforce
• the knowledge argument: the arts create new knowledge for innovation through creative production and processes, including collaborations with other disciplines, such as science, within and beyond universities
• the commercialisation argument: the arts can convert new knowledge and research into profits through entrepreneurial activity
• the economic argument: the arts, as part of the creative industries, occupy a substantial, growing, enabling and innovative part of the economy
• the systems argument: the cultural sector is an innovation system within which various institutions and organisations behave as innovation hubs.

Finally, we consider how these arguments might be strengthened to meet the opportunities of the next period of innovation policy development and practice in Australia, especially the Review of the National Innovation System.

If the arts are to be valued as an integral part of Australia's national innovation system, we must:

• include the arts in the proposed National Innovation Council
• strengthen the evidence base for 'arts and innovation' arguments
• develop an understanding of arts-based knowledge that connects it to innovation
• broaden commercialisation of the arts and creative outputs
• develop the argument for the arts as social innovation
• educate an innovative workforce.

Meeting these challenges requires further research, sector-wide coordination and leadership. In the final analysis, this paper is a history, a summary and an articulation of the arguments advanced by the arts and the broader HASS sector to fuse the national arts and innovation fabrics, and the challenges to be faced in achieving this important national goal.

 

Brad Haseman & Luke Jaaniste
1 November 2008

 

For more information, please contact:

Executive Director

Council of the Humanties, Arts and Social Sciences

Phone: +61 2 6249 1995

director [at] chass.org.au