Cross-disciplinarity to Hyperdisciplinarity: The beginning or the end?

Interdisciplinarity is accepted as a key strategy of many contemporary creative arts institutions, relevant to both its educational and research agendas. It enables multiple benefits: including enriching the student experience and their real-world problem solving abilities; allowing for more complex research outcomes; and promoting wider impact of research beyond the academy. However national quality assurance policies such as those of the Australian Quality Framework are poorly equipped to address non-discipline specific activity and current models of interdisciplinary pedagogy lack industry engagement or research-focus, infrequently prioritising outcomes. To embed outcome-orientated interdisciplinarity within teaching programs, a flexible and responsive mechanism that provides additional resourcing for emergent interdisciplinary projects is required. The benefits of allocating these resources are far-reaching.