The Artist-Initiated Frontier: Structural Evolution and the ALO Framework in Neuroarts Research

Neuroarts research — an interdisciplinary field integrating neuroscience and the arts — has matured to a developmental threshold at which artist-led inquiry is both necessary and structurally underserved. While the Neuroarts Blueprint Initiative publicly commits to advancing equity and innovation within arts–science collaboration, independent arts practitioners engaged in artistic research and arts-based inquiry encounter a persistent access paradox: institutional research governance structures that rhetorically champion inclusion while they operationally privilege proposals originating from credentialed academic laboratories. Through a structural policy analysis of the Neuroarts Blueprint Initiative’s investigator-level funding mechanisms, this article demonstrates how artist-initiated research proposals are precluded prior to intellectual merit review due to eligibility asymmetries embedded within current research infrastructure. This exclusion creates a misalignment between neuroaesthetic theory, interdisciplinary research ideals, and existing funding praxis. To address these constraints, I propose the Artist-Led Origination (ALO) framework — a standards-equivalent governance enhancement designed to expand innovation capacity within neuroarts, arts and neuroscience research, and broader interdisciplinary knowledge production. The ALO framework offers a scalable model for practitioner-led scholarship that advances methodological rigor, equity in research access, and sustainable arts–science collaboration without displacing institutional research structures.