The Sheil Review recommends leaving assessing excellence to the ARC, with no “light-touch” metric. The creative arts research lobby has ideas
Tully Barnett (Flinders U), Craig Batty (Uni SA) and Grayson Cooke (Sothern Cross U), for the Deans and Directors of Creative Arts and the Australian Consortium of Humanities Researchers and Centres have ideas for their disciplines.
work is hard to review: “there is no direct correlation between the paths that conventional scholarly publications take to come into the world, and the pathways for creative research works. Artists in universities are often engaged in work that is not well understood either by the university or by the broader arts community, making navigating these markers of excellence complicated.”
and competitive quality is counter-productive: “quality exercises, as much as they are collaboratively designed to assess disciplines or cohorts rather than individuals, tend to highlight the success of individuals, reward some institutions, and direct resources in hierarchical and unfair ways.”
but not all metrics are equally inappropriate: “citations are simply one amongst many possible data points and should not be prioritised above other forms of engagement. … Big-data scraping and profiling techniques common in the commercial world can be more useful in gauging the impact of creative research”
what’s needed is transparency: “a rising tide raises all ships; transparent research reporting holds the potential for institutions and researchers to demonstrate best practice and learn from each other in resistance to entrenched stratification.”
and the right peer-review: “we aspire to a system of peer-reviewing research for excellence and quality that understands the value of creative practice and the important role of creative practitioners in the university environment.”
If the government agrees to empower the ARC to decide what research rates this will be the first of a great many competitive case-makings, as discipline groups call for assessments that suit their unique circumstances