Australian Universities Accord Panel Consultation on the Accord Interim Report

A New Approach (ANA) welcomes this opportunity to make a submission to the Review of the Accord Interim Report. ANA recognises the efforts of the Australian Universities Accord Panel and the Accord Taskforce in the Department of Education. We confirm that this submission can be made public.

ANA is Australia’s leading think tank focused on arts and culture. Through credible and independent public leadership, ANA helps build an ambitious and innovative policy and investment environment for arts, culture and creativity. We work to ensure Australia can be a great place for creators and audiences, whoever they are and wherever they live.

This short submission provides reflections on three aspects of the Accord Interim Report:

• First Nations issues as an area for immediate action
• Equity and communities as areas for further consideration
• Fostering international engagement as an area for further consideration, which ANA considers is particularly important in relation to cultural and creative courses

In our role as a philanthropically funded, independent think tank, ANA is ready to provide further information about the response in this submission and would welcome the opportunity to discuss.

Warm regards,

Kate Fielding, CEO, A New Approach (ANA)

Subchapter 1.4 ‘First Nations at the heart of Australia’s higher education system’

ANA welcomes prioritising First Nations issues as an area for immediate action in the higher education system. This is consistent with Pillar 1 of the National Cultural Policy, ‘First Nations First’.Commonwealth of Australia, “Revive: A Place for Every Story, a Story for Every Place – Australia’s Cultural Policy for the next Five Years,” January 2023, https://www.arts.gov.au/publications/national-cultural-policyrevive-place-every-story-story-every-place. In particular, ANA welcomes the Australian Government commitment to extend demand-driven funding to metropolitan First Nations students, a critical first step in the Accord Interim Report.

Subchapters 2.3 Equity in participation, access and opportunity’ and 2.6 ‘serving our communities’

ANA supports a focus on ‘equity in participation, access and opportunity’ and ‘serving our communities’, including in relation to higher education courses in arts, culture and creativity, as areas for further consideration. ANA’s research shows that middle Australians consider arts and culture to be essential to the Australian way of life.ANA’s middle Australia series is a three-year national focus group study on attitudes towards arts, culture and creativity amongst people from low- and middle-income households in regional or outer suburban locations. These people are politically unaligned, predominantly living in swinging federal electorates, from a range of cultural backgrounds and not working in arts and culture. Kate Fielding and Jodie-Lee Trembath, “A View from Middle Australia: Perceptions of Arts, Culture and Creativity,” Insight Series (Canberra: A New Approach and the Australian Academy of the Humanities, May 2020), https://newapproach.org.au/wpcontent/uploads/2021/07/3-ANA-InsightReportThree-FullReport.pdf. Middle Australians believe arts and culture help bring communities together, break down barriers between different groups within society and encourage greater communication.

Subchapter 2.5 ‘Fostering international engagement’

ANA highlights the importance of courses in arts, culture and creativity to ‘fostering international engagement’. These courses may be pivotal in rebuilding Australia’s international education industry as we continue to recover from the pandemic and associated economic recession. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from the Queensland University of Technology found that one in 5 (20.5%) international students were studying creative courses in 2018, up from 15.4% in 2013.For further detail, please refer to Case Study 4 of our insight report ‘Australia’s Cultural and Creative Economy: A 21st Century Guide’. Jodie-Lee Trembath and Kate Fielding, “Australia’s Cultural and Creative Economy: A 21st Century Guide,” Insight Series (Canberra: A New Approach and the Australian Academy of the Humanities, October 2020), https://newapproach.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/5-ANA-InsightReportFiveFullReport.pdf.