2/24/2016 Research Creation: A Scholarship of Creativity? | NMC Media-N http://median.newmediacaucus.org/research-creation-explorations/research-creation-a-scholarship-of-creativity/ 1/16 Journal of the New Media Caucus | ISSN: 1942017X Research Creation: A Scholarship of Creativity? Hart Cohen Associate Professor, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney The educational future of visual arts study at the university level lay in the contribution to be made to knowledge and thereby adapted the conventions of scholarly practice. [1] Introduction While the term “researchcreation” has gained a currency in Canada such that it commands not only a understanding of particular kinds of research practices, but has also become a formalized term within the main funding body (SSHRC) for the Humanities, enabling artistic practices and research a purchase in the competition for the research dollar. This is unique within the OECD even while under certain circumstances adjudicating panels distributing research dollars will have Creative Arts added to their nomenclature (as in a panel for Humanities and Creative Arts for the Australian Research Council (ARC)). This paper explores the sometimes contentious space referred to as “researchcreation” but known as practicebased research in the national context of interest for this paper, Australia. There is a shared lexicon in this field with UK institutions as is often the case in the educational exchanges between Australia and the UK. I argue in this article that, in the high stakes game of research funding, it is incumbent to find in Research Creation the scholarly values that underpin mainstream research funding. To reinforce this argument, I will present through summaries and media, an exhibition and symposium in “researchcreation” that was held in Australia in 2014 that exemplifies best practice in the field. A Scholarship of Creativity In 2009, I published a paper titled, “Knowledge and a Scholarship Creativity.” The paper concluded that, “. . . Arts practice research can create new knowledge and contribute to new ways of thinking. The practitioner constructs theories of ‘artistic knowing’ and in this manner can develop theories about art, about learning and teaching art and about the cultural worlds to which art is frequently linked.” [2] Since this time, there have been significant changes within those parts of the university where research creation has developed and within the bureaucracies that enable them – in particular national research councils. In the context of the opening quotation from Graeme Sullivan, the criteria for acceptance of research creation as a viable category of research hinges on the character and quality of it making an original contribution to knowledge. However, in a manifesto on practicebased research, Brad Haseman notes that rather than an original contribution knowledge, research creation may be concerned with “improvements of practice, and new epistemologies of practice distilled from the insider’s understanding of action in context.” [3]