In 2015-6 Regional Arts Australia delivered a highly successful Regional Arts Development (RAD) fellowships program. The RAD Fellowships were an initiative of the Ministry for the Arts. This successful program resulted in five regional arts practitioners being supported to advance their careers, through financial and institutional support. Recipients were selected through a competitive grant round process, each category had its own assessment criteria, as well as four overall criteria and were assessed by an independent panel. The artists who received fellowships were established artists, with a track record of achievement. The nature of the fellowship was to take what the artists had already achieved and elevate their career to the next level.