PHA Advocacy Priorities Survey Results
PHA conducted a national advocacy survey over the 2025-2026 summer months to understand members’ interests, concerns, and preferences for future advocacy efforts. The Advocacy subcommittee is grateful to the assistance of Dr David Waldron who developed the survey questions and produced a final report on the survey results in consultation with Kimberley Meagher and Lucy Bracey.
As Dr Waldron notes in his report:
“The results give PHA a clear advocacy mandate. Members prioritise stable research infrastructure, equitable professional opportunities, adequately funded GLAM institutions, access to collections and archives, and stronger public recognition of historical expertise. The survey also shows concern about underfunding, precarious employment, AI-related disruption, misinformation, weak attribution practices, and wider political pressure on the field.”
Members expressed sustained funding for national research infrastructure as their highest priority with secure career opportunities for historians, public history visibility and industry partnerships and GLAM sector funding and collections as the secondary tier of priorities.
The report looked at the professional composition of respondents, geographic distribution, advocacy network and union membership, pressures affecting professional historians, member willingness to assist and preferences for evidence based information.
To see how your state or territory responded to the survey, click here to read the report in full.