CHERINE FAHD, Associate Professor, Visual Communication, School of Design, UTS.
I joined the UTS Design, Architecture and Building faculty in 2017, after five years at Sydney College of the Arts. The artists at SCA have long been advocating for creative practice research. I shared what I learned at SCA with colleagues at UTS. Since then, I’ve worked as part of a team of ADRs, Research Managers and colleagues to help develop a rigorous and supportive process for reporting creative practice as research. I don’t view this as a compliance exercise, but rather as a form of advocacy. The reporting structure aims to support artists, designers and practitioners across fashion, visual communication, product design, service design, architecture and visual art to approach their work as research from the outset.
The NTRO guidelines developed are detailed and specific. They help researchers frame their methods, questions and outcomes well before submission. This means projects are increasingly being designed with the final NTRO in mind. I’ve found that the clarity of the process reduces stress and encourages researchers to seriously legitimate their practice as research.
It wasn’t perfect at the start, but over time the process has improved in response to feedback from creative practitioners engaged in the process. For example, there’s no gatekeeping. The NTRO subcommittee comprises peers from across the Design, Architecture and Built Environment Schools. They support researchers to have their work recognised and offer constructive feedback to strengthen submissions. It’s collegial. Not adversarial.
We’ve also focused on translating institutional language. Terms like ‘peer review’ and ‘esteem’ can feel alien to creatives more familiar with industry or community contexts. Our job has been to make ARC criteria usable. Reporting focuses on three areas: background, contribution and significance. Much rests on the research question. If it’s clear, the submission tends to hold. The question doesn’t need to be theoretical but it must be precise, arising from practice and answerable through the work. What’s the enquiry? What new knowledge does the work generate? Why does it matter?
While this supports critical thinking, it’s time-consuming. The justification required for an NTRO is intensive, far more than for a traditional output, where publication is often enough. The burden of proof for creative practice certainly remains higher and I’m wondering how this might change.
The more challenging part is maintaining the balance between genuine participation and institutional cynicism. There’s often a quiet doubt: will this process really recognise what I do? Does the university care? I acknowledge those doubts. I’m a realist too. This is still a metrics-driven system. NTROs are subject to ERA codes and data fields. However, we’ve worked to make the system legible and workable while continuing to advocate for creative practices that may not always align with standard metrics.
But the process is working. Submissions are increasing. More staff are engaging early, testing ideas and refining research statements. Work that sits at the intersection of community engagement, social practice, and visual inquiry is now being logged as research. The language is shifting. People are becoming more confident and precise in how they frame what they do.
To support work that falls outside the formal ARC framework the faculty developed Creative Practice Benchmarks (2019). These sit alongside the NTRO guidelines and recognise creative outputs as valuable even if they don’t qualify as research. They allow staff to account for creative work in annual workplans and promotion cases. This framework acknowledges the reality: creative work is a form of intellectual labour, even if the sector hasn’t caught up.
In short, we’ve built a culture of participation that’s both rigorous and generous. The process affirms that the work we do as artists, designers, architects, curators, makers and researchers is a valuable contribution to the university and, more importantly, society. That’s not just a bureaucratic outcome but a political one.