Cultural Fund grants for Unis and academics

June 28, 2018

The Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund has granted tens of millions of dollars to the academic community since inception.

In the last decade, we’ve provided millions to universities through programs such as:

  • Deakin University’s research into adolescent reading habits
  • UNSW Press’s Bragg Prize for best Australian science writing
  • Griffith University’s Griffith Review
  • UTS and Uni of SA writers’ residencies
  • Murdoch University’s Teacher Librarians as Australian Literature Advocates in Schools, and
  • La Trobe University’s Young Archaeologists’ Program.

At the end of last year, Deakin University Senior Lecturer, Writing and Literature, Dr Leonie Rutherford and her colleague Associate Professor Katya Johanson were granted $79,800 over three years to further their research into adolescent reading habits.

They were first granted $20,000 in 2016 for their research: Australian young adult reading behaviour in a digital era. Among their many findings was that the difficulty of finding a ‘good book’ is Australian teens’ top reason for not reading more and that existing strategies such as book industry events have limited reach with young Australians, while school librarians in particular are key influencers.

Their new research, Australian adolescents and reading: discoverability and cultural pathways to engagement, will go further. Planned activities include:

  • Focus groups with up to 360 teens across four states (NSW, VIC, QLD, SA) between 12 and 18 years to establish themes around: the relationship between recreational reading and alternative cultural choices; discoverability, acess and sharing of recommendations; the role of participatory writing and reading sites in development of Australian fictional taste cultures.
  • Detailed case studies of 12 teens, selected to represent socioeconomic and cultural diversity. Using interviews, interactive diaries, and observations, the researchers will map their decision-making matrixes and the cultural conduits to their consumption and creative engagement with preferred genres.

Find out more about the Cultural Fund.