DDCA

Deans and Directors of Creative Arts

2025 DDCA Award Winners!

1. Distinguished Australian First Nations Creative Leadership Award

WINNER: Professor Melitta Hogarth

Highly commended

NIDA’s First Nations Unit: Mr Travis Cardona, Ms Rhoda Roberts AO, Mr Matthew Doyle, Ms Andrea Daniels, National Institute of Dramatic Art 

2. Distinguished Innovation in Creative Arts Award

WINNERS: Dr Shannon Owen & Assoc. Prof Donna Lyon

Highly commended

Dr Kim Munro

Dr Romy Ash, Dr Penni Russon, Dr Rose Michael and Dr Nicola Redhouse.

3. Distinguished Creative Teaching Award​

WINNERS: Associate Professor Bernadette (B) Hardy, Dr Sara Padgett Kjaersgaard, Eva Lloyd, Dr Sing D’Arcy, Dr Gillian Barlow, Annisa Jones and Dharug Dharawal Ngurra

4. Distinguished Creative Researcher Award​

WINNER: Professor Cat Hope

5. Distinguished Creative Arts Doctoral Student Award

WINNER: Raphaela Rosella

Read the details of the award winners and their winning works.

The 2025 DDCA Awards were judged by Professor Jane Davidson (University of Melbourne), Professor Donna Hancox (QUT), Professor Meghan Kelly (Deakin), Professor Naomi Sunderland (Griffith), Professor Verena Thomas (ECU), with external moderator Professor Jen Webb (Uni of Canberra) and led by Associate Professor Beata Batorowicz (UniSQ)

Other recent news

Other related news

Exploring the Arts for Social, Cultural and Educational Value from Cradle to Grave

DDCA Webinar, 1-2pm AEDT, Friday 9th October 2026. The arts constitute a vital accompaniment to human life across our lifespan, enriching individual wellbeing and fostering social connection from infancy through to older age. In early childhood, musical practices, such as lullabies, play a significant role in supporting emotional regulation, attachment, and cognitive development, providing infants […]

Read more +
A new National Cultural Policy

The DDCA together with DASSH (Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) made a submission to the National Cultural Policy review of Revive. Our submission recognised the important architecture of the existing 5 pillars that work to support First Nations First; A Place for Every Story; Centrality of the Artist; Strong Cultural Infrastructure; and […]

Read more +
APPLY: 2026 DDCA AWARDS

The DDCA Awards are designed to acknowledge and celebrate outstanding contributions to creative arts, elevate and share best practice, and encourage and promote the next generation of creative arts leaders in research and education. The Awards promote diversity and recognise contributions and achievements by First Nations creatives, as well as early-, mid- and senior-career practitioners […]

Read more +
2026 DDCA National Online Forum

Power in the Present: Valuing the Arts NOW Date: Tuesday 19th May 2026 Time: 12.00pm – 1.30pm (AEST) WATCH THE RECORDING We are hosting another National Online Forum, continuing our advocacy work to secure artistic practices within and outside the university as fundamental to a healthy and thriving society.     In context of the national and global events […]

Read more +
DDCA Submission to Job Ready Graduates Inquiry

The DDCA has made a submission to the Inquiry: Higher Education Support Amendment (Reverse Job-Ready Graduates Fee Hikes and End 50k Arts Degrees) Bill 2025. Read the submission

Read more +
OUT NOW Evaluating creative practice research: A new framework

ABSTRACT It has been widely noted that creative practice research agitates in positive ways certain attitudes, understandings and/or practices towards ‘knowledge’ and ‘research’ within the university context. Not only this, or partly because of this, creative practice research complicates established scholarly protocols of assessment and evaluation. This has been a topic of concern and debate […]

Read more +