The Humanities in Australia Today: an appraisal of current activity and likely trends in teaching, learning and research across the humanities in Australia

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The humanities ‘ecology’ has never been mapped comprehensively in Australia. Both the academic workforce and the student cohort are relatively poorly understood in terms of current strengths and weaknesses and likely future trends. A clear understanding of humanities research activity and potential in Australia is crucial to developing an informed approach to managing our national knowledge requirements in a wide range of disciplines, including ethics, history, Asian and European studies, society and culture, religious studies, archaeology and linguistics. Detailed knowledge of humanities teaching and learning is just as important. The community relies upon the humanities sector to produce graduates competent in fields as diverse as: heritage management; understanding of foreign languages and culture; Australian history, literature and arts; and media and communications. Current statistical collections provide a patchy and inconsistent view of the disposition of the humanities in Australia: we are unable to say with much precision how the humanities was arrayed in the recent past; and it is very difficult to make a confident prediction of the sector’s profile and capabilities in the near future. This project will analyse existing data and produce supplemental data to complete the picture, and conduct a detailed synoptic examination of the total humanities community in higher education, including students and academics. The result will be a comprehensive picture of the current and future state of play of Australia’s humanities capability, which will inform Government, industry and community responses to current and emerging national priority areas of workforce need and knowledge requirements.