The Australia Council for the Arts has appointed Claire Duffy as director of strategy.

Ms Duffy brings to the Australia Council extensive experience in strategic planning, managing projects, providing intellectual and conceptual leadership and driving research and analysis.

Ms Duffy will lead the Australia Council’s strategy team, responsible for developing plans and options for the Council, including its own corporate plan, to address artform and sector-specific issues.

The strategy team will also provide insight from a range of research and analysis projects, and manage valuable resources such as the Australia Council’s Research Centre Collection, which is the most comprehensive collection of books, serials and videos on arts and cultural policy in Australia.

Most recently Ms Duffy has been director, portfolio services with the NSW Ministry of the Arts. In this role, she is one of two leaders of Ministry branches, responsible for managing the State’s eight major cultural institutions, supporting and directing their operations and ensuring the delivery of outcomes.

She has 20 years’ experience in arts and heritage industries, mainly in museums, where she has played a strategic management role in public programs and communications. With qualifications in arts and education, Ms Duffy has also worked at the Natural History Museum, London, and at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

Ms Duffy’s position is one of the director positions announced by the Australia Council as part of its 2005 reorganisation. Ms Duffy will take up her new role from 6 February 2006.