CREATIVE WORK RESEARCH STATEMENT WORKSHEET
This worksheet has been developed to help you write Research Statements for your Creative Works.
These statements are required for research reporting purposes within the university, but they also
reach an external audience as a part of the peer review processes of the Australian Research
Council’s Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative. They should be written for an expert
audience, but one that is not necessarily expert in the same field or discipline as you.
The time and energy you put into writing these statements can also be capitalised upon to reach a
non-university audience — you may consider adapting these Research Statements to such purposes
as: media releases, artists’ statements, project descriptions for funding applications or residency
applications, funding acquittals, etc.
The worksheet asks a number of questions to help develop substance and focus in these statements.
After working through the questions, you should be well equipped to assemble a clear and
comprehensive statement that describes the scholarly background to your work, its intellectual
contribution to your field, and its significance.
Then you simply need to combine your responses into prose form and refine this to meet the
(approx.) 250-word limit (2000 characters with spaces). Some of your count goes towards a standard
format to improve the readability of the final record, so when preparing your Research Statement,
please use the capitalised sub-headings ‘BACKGROUND’, ‘CONTRIBUTION’ and ‘SIGNIFICANCE’.
EVIDENTIARY REQUIREMENTS
If you cannot answer ‘yes’ to all of the questions on this page, contact your School’s research team for advice.
Do you have a copy or evidence of the output?
Please note that digital files, not links, should be supplied.
Evidence may be: a copy of a written work as published in a book, journal or magazine, photographic documentation of an exhibition, or a digital copy of
the work (e.g. the video file of an animation). This copy of the output or its documentation needs to fully represent the output, so that, if subject to ERA
assessment, a reviewer can properly understand and assess the work. Please supply as many digital documents of varying types as are necessary for this
purpose.
Do you have evidence that the work has been published / shown?
What kind of evidence do you have, and do you have digital files of this?
You need to demonstrate that your work was published or exhibited. In the case of written works, provide a copy of the information about the publication
(the place of publication, the publisher, the date of publication and the ISBN or ISSN). In the case of exhibited works, a screen-grab of a gallery’s webpage
for the exhibition, the film festival program, or other evidence of your involvement such as published reviews, can demonstrate where and when your work
was shown.
Do you have evidence of authorship?
What kind of evidence do you have, and do you have digital files of this?
For example: a copy of an exhibition invite, acceptance into a festival, or promotional material featuring your name, or, in the case of written works, a
published copy of the work on which your name appears. If you completed the work as a member of a team or collective and it is the team or collective that
is named as author, a statement from the organisation or collective that lists team members is also required, with a list of respective responsibilities — this
may be, for example, from the organisation/collective’s webpage or from the list of authors/ contents page of a book.
Do you have evidence of peer review or equivalent?


The output was shown at a venue that is on the ‘List of Approved Venues for Creative Work’.
For exhibited works, if the Creative Work was exhibited in an outlet that is on the List of Approved Venues, no further action or evidence is
needed, but if the venue is not on that list, you need to provide evidence of peer review.
Can you provide evidence of peer review — for example, you might include a copy of:
 reviewers’ reports;
 a statement from a gallery’s webpage or application paperwork describing its review process or otherwise indicating that all submissions
are subject to peer review;
 a letter of invitation or engagement from curatorial or editorial personnel;
 a page from the book or publication stating that its contents were subject to peer review;
 a review by an editorial selection committee or a gallery selection committee;
 a positive review of the work in a publication that was itself subject to peer review; or
 another type of evidence of peer review process.
1
BACKGROUND
What is the broad field to which your work contributes? And what is the narrow field?
Or: what are the broad and the narrow disciplines into which your work fits? For example: ‘cultural studies’ (broad) and
‘qualitative studies of urban subcultures’ (narrow), or ‘communication design practice’ (broad) and ‘literary book typography’
(narrow). It may help to ask yourself: who is my peer community?
Which scholarly debates in this narrow field does your work address?
What are the key outlets in which this debate is playing out?
(Optional: this question and the two following are intended to help you add substance to your Research Statement)
Consider which galleries, journals, conferences, book series, etc., are the key sites of the debate to which your work contributes.
Who are the key figures in this debate?
Who are the most significant practitioners whose work is the point of departure for your own? Or, who are the key thinkers
whose ideas have informed your own thinking?
Which recent works have influenced this debate?
Which books, journal articles, exhibitions, artworks, works of design, etc., have had an important influence on debates in this
field?
What issues remain to be explored?
In other words, what is the gap in knowledge that your work addresses?
CONTRIBUTION
Based on the gap in the knowledge in the field you have identified, what is the enquiry you explore in this
Creative Work?
What, in other words, is the research question framing this research output?
What is the work? What did you make or do? What, exactly, was your role in the creation of this work?
How can this work be defended as a legitimate means of answering the research question?
Describe the ways in which this Creative Work can be understood to expand knowledge in the field. For example, how can a poem or painting or piece of
creative writing, etc., answer the above research question? In more conventional academic terms, what are your research methods and how do you defend
them? Or: how do you defend the fit of your approach to your question?
What new understandings does this work contribute to the field?
In other words, what are the findings of your research? What was your answer to the above research question?
Or, what new point have you thus reached in your practice? In short, explain the originality of the work.
What directions for future research does this work open up?
These may be new issues for yourself or for others in your field to explore.
It may help to ask yourself: ‘what new possibilities does this work open up for my practice?’
Are there any broader benefits or potential benefits of your work on the narrow or broad field?
What is the impact of this work? Who does or who might this work benefit, and how? Ask yourself: who are the stakeholders,
audience, or end users, and what is the benefit to each group?
2
SIGNIFICANCE
In the previous section, you described the academic contribution made through this work. Now we look at this work
In terms of broader benefits or potential benefits.
What is the impact of this work? Who does or who might this work benefit, and how? Ask yourself: who are the
stakeholders, audience, or end users, and what is the benefit to each group?
Describe the importance of the venue or the other persons involved, or of the extent of any funding or the competitiveness of the funding scheme, can help
to establish the significance of this work. If the work was part of a curated exhibition, an edited collection, a festival, etc., who was the curator, editor or
jury?
In what ways can the context of this work help us understand its importance?
Explain the esteem of the outlet, venue, exhibition, event, editor, curator, collaborator(s) and /or other exhibitors:
Consider listing high-profile contributors who have published in the same publication or exhibited in the same gallery. Don’t take local or national knowledge
of significance for granted: explain the significance of venues, etc., such that this can be understood by an international reader, e.g., ‘the National Gallery of
Victoria is a peak public art museum of national and international significance’.
Was the work funded?
By whom? And to what value? Funding body and scheme Funding value (include currency if not AUD)?
In the case of multiple funding sources, please itemise funders, and grant or scheme where applicable, and respective amounts, e.g.: Australia Council for
the Arts New Work Scheme (AUD20,000), European Union Cultural Funding (EUR20,000), etc. Don’t take local or national knowledge of significance for
granted: explain the significance of funding such that this can be understood by an international reader, e.g., ‘the Australia Council for the Arts is the federal
government’s peak arts funding and advisory body’.
Has the work been reviewed, featured, acquired, republished or subsequently exhibited elsewhere?
If so, where, when, and by whom? Why is this review, feature, acquisition, republication or reshowing important?
Has the work received any awards or prizes?
If so, what was the award or prize? Is this an important award or prize in your field, and, if so, why? If it was a cash award or
equivalent (e.g., a scholarship for travel), what was the value of the award?
In what other ways can the significance of this work be explained?
Is the work doing something new and important that isn’t entirely described by the explanation of its academic contribution in
the previous section? Will it set a trend for a community of practice? Has it been notably successful in commercial or popular
terms?
3