The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...
In the Australia Council's Grants Handbook 1996 there is a list of activities that the Council will not fund. Amongst the range of non-funded activities, which includes projects that "do not involve professional artists or artworkers", major capital expenditure, basic course work or assessment, and competitions or prizes, we also find "academic research". But what exactly does this mean? What is the difference between academic research and art practice? Is it just a matter of who is doing the work – the difference between art work produced by academics and work produced by artists who are not employed by a university or art college?
While the Australia Council's exclusion of activities that might count as "academic research" might seem to provide an active disincentive for artists to treat their practice as a form of academic research, in fact, at least in the universities and colleges, the opposite seems to be happening. Artists who are employed as academics, particularly those who are employed full-time, need to be able to demonstrate some sort of research output – these days, simply being a good teacher will not usually provide sufficient grounds for confirmation of appointment or promotion. But research output is not only important for personal professional advancement, it also contributes to the overall reputation and funding base of the institution. This latter aspect occurs through the research related component of university operating grants – the "research quantum".
The resources tied to the research quantum are intended to fund research infrastructure, and facilities. As the October 1995 report of the Senate Environment, Recreation, Communications and the Arts References Committee, Arts Education, points out, research quantum calculations are "based on a weighted formula... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline