In May 2026, DASSH and the Deans and Directors of Creative Arts (DDCA) made a joint submission in response to the public consultation paper Towards a new National Cultural Policy by the Office of the Arts, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Communications, Sport and the Arts.

Our submission welcomed continued support to the five enduring pillars established through existing national cultural strategy framework Revive. We called for a sixth pillar Arts Learning, Participation and Pathways as a key strategy for enabling success of the existing pillars.

We also made the following recommendations:

• Recognise universities and higher education institutions as part of Australia’s national cultural infrastructure.
• Establish stronger coordination between cultural policy, higher education policy, research policy and the work of ATEC to support cultural capability and workforce development.
• Support arts, cultural and creative capability development across schools, higher education and lifelong learning.
• Improve policy signalling across education, skills and cultural policy settings to support participation and sustainable creative pathways.
• Strengthen participation and pathways for underrepresented cohorts, including regional, First Nations, disability and low socioeconomic communities.