ANZAHPE Health Humanities Award

What is the Health Humanities Innovation Award?

Peer recognition for an innovative individual or team that encourages the use of arts and health humanities in health professions education in Australia or New Zealand.

Health humanities in health professions education draws on the arts (e.g., literature, visual art, film, music, theatre, and narrative) and humanities disciplines (e.g., history, philosophy, and ethics) to develop empathy, compassion, observation, critical thinking, communication, personal and professional identity and uncertainty tolerance.

Therefore, this award recognises outstanding contributions to health professions education that thoughtfully integrate the arts and/or health humanities across research, education, and practice. It celebrates individuals or teams who use creative, critical, and human-centred approaches to deepen understandings of lived and living experiences. This has been shown to foster compassion, reflexivity, and enrich learning, care, and scholarly inquiry.

This award honours a remarkable individual or team that aspires to promote humanistic health professions education through a health humanities lens across research, education and practice. The award values work that is inclusive, ethically grounded, and responsive to diverse social, cultural, and clinical contexts.

Who is eligible?

Health professional educators/researchers or teams who are currently individual or corporate members of ANZAHPE, and who are affiliated with an Australian or New Zealand institution where the work relating to the nomination is undertaken.

Criteria and Process:

Criteria that will be considered in demonstrating impact of the arts and health humanities in health professions education are:

o Integration of arts and/or health humanities

o Educational impact and innovation

o Scholarly contribution

o Practice relevance

Examples may include (but are not limited to):

• Art-based and participatory research methods (e.g., body mapping, photovoice, or poetic inquiry).

• Educational initiatives embedding humanities-informed pedagogy (e.g., reflective practice, or creative assessment).

• Practice-based programs that use the arts (e.g., gallery and museum visits, or workshops in poetry music or drama)

• Scholarship that bridges theory and practice (e.g., visual thinking strategies, narrative medicine, theatre, or creative writing)

In addition to the criteria form, supporting documentation can be included in the form of documents or multimedia (e.g., photographs, video, or visual imagery).

Composition of Awards Selection Committee

The annual review panel will comprise any three of the following members:

o Lead of the ANZAHPE Health Humanities SIG

o Another ANZAHPE Health Humanities SIG member

o One ANZAHPE Committee of Management/Board member

o Where possible a community partner (patient/carer/advocate) and/or a health profession student

Presentation of Award:

The award will be announced and presented to the award recipient at the ANZAHPE Annual Conference.

Prize

The award includes a cash prize of AU$1,000 to support the continuation, dissemination, and/or the development of arts- and humanities-informed work in health professions education.

HOW TO SUBMIT A NOMINATION

Please email the completed nomination form, criteria form and supporting documents to: ANZAHPEoffice@flinders.edu.au 

DOWNLOAD THE NOMINATION FORM here.

APPLICATION CLOSING DATE: 4 May, 2026