For the 2026 awards, submissions are welcomed via an open nomination process.

Nominations are accepted by another individual who is not a member of the nominee’s family or a close friend/collaborator. Applicants are not able to self- nominate and must include one referee who is not the nominator in their submission. If in doubt, please contact us.   

Nominees can either be an individual, group or collective or organisation.

Individual nominees must be an Australian citizen or Australian permanent resident, and a practising artist or arts professional.  

Nominees who are groups, collectives or organisations must be based in Australia or have at least Australian citizen or permanent resident leading the artistic work.  

Nominees cannot be a previous recipient of a Creative Australia Award within the past 2 years. Additionally, previous Asia Pacific Arts Awards shortlistees cannot be nominated for the same project in subsequent years. Please refer to this list of awards alumni on the Creative Australia website.  

Supported art forms include:

• community arts and cultural development
• dance
• emerging and experimental arts
• First Nations arts and culture
• literature
• multi-artform
• visual arts
• theatre
• music.  

Activities and engagements must focus on arts and culture, creative practitioners and arts workers. Technology start-ups, science research projects and projects related to feature film, television, or documentary are not eligible.   

Individuals and/or organisations can be nominated in more than one category but for different projects and activities.  

Nominations must demonstrate their engagement with the eligible regions in the Asia Pacific regions. Eligible regions are consistent with the International Engagement Strategies focus on countries in the Asia Pacific.

Engages Communities in Australia with Cultural Connections to the Eligible Regions:

• ASIA: Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong (SAR), Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Bhutan, Mongolia, Brunei, Macau (SAR), Myanmar, Laos, Timor-Leste  
• PACIFIC:  Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Hawaii (US), Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, French Polynesia (France), New Caledonia (France), Samoa, Guam (US), Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga, Northern Mariana Islands (US), American Samoa (US), Marshall Islands, Palau, Cook Islands (NZ), Nauru, Wallis and Futuna (France), Tuvalu, Easter Island (Chile), Niue (NZ), Tokelau (NZ), Pitcairn Islands (UK).

The awards will be assessed by industry advisors with decisions made by the Executive of Creative Australia.

Advisor Review 

1. Creative Australia will appoint up to 3 industry advisors per category for the 2026 Asia Pacific Awards.

These industry advisors with diverse and relevant experience across the Asia Pacific region will score and assess the nominations against the assessment criteria provided in these guidelines.

2. Industry advisors will then advise Creative Australia on which nominees to prioritise as a shortlist for each category.

Moderation

3. An internal moderation process will be conducted by Creative Australia which includes the International Team, Heads of Practice and the First Nations Team, Music Australia and Writing Australia.

Please note,

• Fair Selection Process: The number of times an individual is nominated will not influence or guarantee their selection as an awardee.
• Duplicate Nominations: Multiple nominations for the same individual will be considered, but duplicates will not affect the outcome.

The shortlisted groups of nominees will also consider diverse representation considering art forms, geography, representation, audiences and communities.

Final Selection and Decision-Making Process

4. The International Engagement team provides the final list of short listees and award recipient recommendations to the Executive for approval. The Australia Council Board and Minister will be notified of the shortlist and award winners, however, do not inform the decision making process. A shortlist is published on our website eight weeks prior to the Awards event.

5. Industry advisors’ names are published on our website when the Awards are announced. 

6. The Director International will notify the winners prior to the event.

Each nomination will be assessed against the following two criteria.   

1.  Quality: industry advisors will assess the quality of the artistic and/or cultural development activities outlined in the nomination and included in the support material.

They may consider:

• the vision, ideas and artistic rationale  
• quality and experiences of the artists and creative workers involved
• quality of artistic works
• quality of artistic works previously created/produced, considering public and/or peer responses to the works
• benefit and impact on career, artistic or cultural practice of the participating artists.
• the level of innovation, ambition, experimentation or risk-taking evident in the activities

2. Impact

Industry advisors will assess the impacts on the sector, artists or targeted participants / audience.

They may consider:

• proposed impact for the artists or communities
• evidence of significant experiences offered to communities
• how the activity is relevant to the identified areas of practice and career development 
• potential to discover and develop new markets, relationships or meet existing market demand 
• the extent to which the activity contributes to a sector that is accessible, inclusive and equitable.
• the capacity to strengthen skills and abilities of those involved 
• community engagement and ongoing sustainability of the work in place for the community.

Log into Creative Australia’s Application Management System to submit your nominations.   

If you haven’t used this system before you will need to register in the system and create an individual account.  

Your username is usually your (first name) (last name).  

If you have trouble logging in, please contact us via international@creative.gov.au.

Once logged in you will be asked which profile you would like to use – please select ‘Grantee’ and then ‘Continue’.  

We have created draft nominations for you to complete – you will find them under the ‘Applications > Your Draft Applications’ menu on the left-hand side of the Welcome screen   

To assist industry advisors understand your nomination, please consider the following details when formulating your responses.

• Who you are nominating – provide as many details as you are able to so we can identify the nominee. It’s fine if some fields are left blank.   
• About your nomination – provide a short summary (2-3 paragraphs, 10 bullet points) of the reasons for your nomination. Use the prompts for the category as a guide when writing your responses. Ensure you consider the two assessment criteria in your responses. Please note: You don't need to provide details of other collaborating organisations involved in the project/program, just the organisation being nominated.
• Location of activity and nominee – provide details on where the activity took place, when it took place and where the nominee is based.  
• Support material – link to the nominees’ website or an example of their work via URLs, if possible, but not compulsory. No other attachments are required.