Apart from the tertiary community
itself, the announcement last week of the PBRF (Performance Based Research
Funding) evaluations probably passed most people by. And yet with static or
diminishing funding from Creative NZ and philanthropy’s flagship Boosted
struggling to get traction, what the visual arts get out of the $262.5 million
allocated to tertiary research will have a major impact on what we see and read
over the coming three or so years.
Here's how it works. Virtually all academic staff have
to submit a detailed portfolio of their research over the previous three years
for which they are given an A,B or C.. The higher your ranking, the more access
to funding you have. In the visual arts this increasingly means highly
subsidised or fully funded art works, exhibitions, and publications by
university staff.
So how did our art schools fare in this funding
gold rush? There are only three horses in this race: University of Auckland,
Massey University and AUT. The art schools are part of the subject area Arts
and Craft but fortunately this time round both Auckland and Massey also had the
results for their art schools recorded separately.
Auckland University art school topped the list with
7 A researchers, 9 B researchers and 6 who came in at C.
Massey’s School of Fine Arts was a close second
with 5 A researchers, 10.8 Bs and 8 Cs.
AUT's art and craft subject area results made it
third with no A researchers, 6.8 Bs and 49.6 Cs.
The rest didn’t really feature.
The take away? Watch out for more public museum projects,
large scale installations, publications and inclusion in cash strapped
biennales and exhibitions both at home and abroad by the senior staff at Elam
and Massey. The names of these funded rock stars will become more apparent as
the years go by.
You can read the full PBRF report here.
You can read the full PBRF report here.
