foundationsas examples of a lively national debate on these issues. australia was of course one of
them. The other two were Finland and the united Kingdom.
Compared to the situation in australia and sweden, it was difficult to find external
factors for the emergence of a vibrant research community in the art schools in Finland.
no major national reform could be mentioned as an explanation. Compared to the
situation in sweden it was easy to see a contrast between the uniform and strictly
regulated swedish scene on the one hand, and a more traditional university autonomy
in Finland on the other. in combination with a historically strong position for the art
schools in Finland this had apparently led to the call for artistic research from within
the schools themselves.
as far as the united Kingdom was concerned it was easier to point to a number
of commissions and reform strategies that had triggered debates about teaching and
research in universities and colleges during the 1980s and 1990s. looked at from the
outside developments in Britain seemed exemplary. The arts and humanities Research
Board had produced a booklet where basic problems seemed to have been sorted out.
The guidelines with regard to the phd process were eagerly studied in many other
countries and provided a much- needed background for developments outside the uK.
a common feature for the countries engaged in the discussion around research in
the arts was, however, the general academic and philosophical climate. They were all
strongly influenced by an analytical philosophical tradition in which the performing
and creative arts were some kind of strangers in the academic community. in countries
on the european continent like France and germany the debate was lacking. in their
philosophical tradition and intellectual environment art schools were not primarily
thought of as belonging to a system where the distinction between teaching and
research was relevant.
in the decade since this review was made a number of changes have taken place
in countries where arts- based research was not on the agenda at the end of the
1990s. some of these developments are due to the changing face of the european
higher education landscape, which will be described below. others are resulting from
continued structural changes of national higher education systems.
austria could be mentioned as an example. Through changes in national legislation
in 1998 and 2002 six higher education institutions in the arts (Kunsthochschulen) were
formally recognized as having the same legal status as universities. in december 2008
the austrian Research Council convened a conference on the theme of arts and
Research and this could be seen as a formal recognition of the need for the research
establishment to take funding of artistic research into account. The subsequent
institution of a funding programme for arts- based research in austria (further described
on the following pages) shows that the german- speaking area of europe has entered
the field of discussion.
The main reasons behind the developments in europe are, however, to be found in
the swift process of european integration in the field of higher education in the first
decade of the twenty- first century.