Hello,
Thank you to  everyone for some really detailed analyses and useful
information. It's given me  a better understanding of the state of art of
academic perspectives in this area.
To clarify the background. The task involves  a handful of academics  in
each faculty making a judgment about which doctoral candidates will receive
government and university doctoral scholarships. The candidates have already
been accepted for doctoral study. The process is criterion-based and the
highest scoring candidates get the scholarship money and the department and
supervisors get the prestige. The criteria are: 
1. Academic qualifications 
2. Achievement  of  doctoral candidacy  
3. Work-related research experience 
4. Academic accomplishments including major research grants, minor research
awards or prizes
5. Research and Creative Output in last 5 years  including refereed and
non-refereed journal articles, conference papers, solo exhibitions and group
exhibitions or equivalent creative production 
6. Referee reports  
For doctoral scholarship candidates in Art, there are substantial benefits
in increasing one's score  by  redefining one's creative activities as
research. Similar benefits are gained from listing publications *about*
one's Art as one's own refereed publications. Problems associated with the
former seem to be due to pressure on Art academics to do research and the
effortlessness of addressing this by arguing that all art-practice is based
on some form of research. Problems about the latter seem to accrue from
Art-related traditions of collating and presenting information about the
display of one's creative output. Similar confusion about both points seems
to occur for the doctoral candidates and their academic referees. There are
sensible reasons for why these problematic issues occur. Of concern from an
ethical perspective, however, is that such mistakes directly benefit the
candidates and their referees where they are the candidate's supervisors. In
the Art research context, these issues might well be considered ethically
unproblematic and not in need of the precautions that might be viewed as
necessary in other disciplines.  Hence my question about current
professional practices in the academic Art realm as I'm not a specialist Art
academic.
The feedback from experts here and the scale of the financial issues
involved (~$90,000 per scholarship) suggests there is a need to review some
aspects of this scholarship awarding process. 
Best wishes and thanks again,
Terry