This paper explores the challenges faced by a regional university when implementing a Doctor of Creative Arts (DCA) program in a performative-based higher education environment. It draws upon the experiences of both the key leadership staff and DCA candidates enrolled in the foundation year of the program and contextualises them within the current landscape of practice-based arts research in the higher education sector. The findings reveal significant institutional awareness of the new program’s potential to facilitate innovative research. It is one shaped, however, by the need to balance financial imperatives and the possibilities, potential, ambiguity, and ambivalence that are inherent in the arts. The implementation of the DCA in 2016, the Chinese Year of the Monkey with its emphasis on intelligent, flexible and creative leadership is one that offers the most relevant metaphorical framework within which the challenges are best articulated and explored.

The introduction of a Doctor of Creative Arts program at a university reflects not just global trends in higher education, but a changing understanding of creativity and innovation.  Ironically, this has occurred during a period in which the current global economic emphasis is on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curriculum and programs. This focus has devalued areas traditionally seen as leading creativity and innovation such as the arts, design and humanities,  The prioritising of certain areas and the subsequent influence on funding decisions reflects an often  narrow understanding of  ‘measurable outcomes’. This has led to an increasing emphasis on standardised tests and ‘learning outcomes’ as a means of measuring student achievement in a performance-based educational climate (Baguley & Fullarton, 2013; Barton et al., 2013; Ewing, 2010). This process continues in spite of  the benefits of alternative modes of enquiry (Eisner, 1997; Ewing, 2010; Gardner, 1993; Pink, 2005; Robinson, 2001; Sawyer, 2006) and the significance and impact of the arts on and in education, which has been well documented globally (Bamford, 2006; Pascoe, et. al., 2005; UNESCO, 2006). 

Research Questions

The following research questions underpin this study:

• What factors have informed and/or impacted on the decision to implement a Doctor of Creative Arts and subsequent non-traditional outputs in the current neo-liberal context universities are operating within?
• What contribution does a program such as the Doctor of Creative Arts have to the higher education sector and the public good more broadly?
• How is the Doctor of Creative Arts perceived in the higher education sector both nationally and internationally? 

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