aes26 International Evaluation Conference: Full Schedule

Presenter and chair information page, resources for conference presenters, authors and session chairs.

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11:00am ACST

Beyond Silos: A Technology–Evaluation Partnership Building a Digital Data Pipeline

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST

Authors: Kristine Tuban, Save the Children, Martin Holmstrand, Save the Children
This presentation showcases MEAL Uplift, a regional initiative by Save the Children Australia that strengthens digital monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) across Pacific Country Offices through a close partnership between programme teams, MEAL, and the Technology team. The presentation focuses on how this collaboration produced a practical, co‑created digital solution while building long‑term organisational capability.

The objective of the presentation is to demonstrate why cross‑disciplinary partnership is critical to improving data quality, efficiency, and use in evaluation practice, and how evaluation can actively shape digital transformation, rather than simply adopting technological tools after they are introduced. This is important in contexts where teams face increasing reporting demands but limited capacity to manage fragmented or manual data systems.

The core argument is that sustainable digital MEAL is achieved when three elements are intentionally integrated:
(1) Digital systems and infrastructure, illustrated through a custom‑built data collection app and automated data pipeline co‑designed with the Technology team to address efficiency and quality challenges;
(2) Skills and behaviours, supported through targeted training, coaching, and practical use of real data; and
(3) Scaling and institutional support, through shared standards, governance, and regional scaffolding that embeds digital MEAL into everyday practice.

The presentation will follow this three‑part structure, using concrete examples and lessons from MEAL Uplift to show what worked, what changed, and why.

Participant engagement will be promoted through short reflection prompts on participants’ own digital MEAL challenges, followed by shared discussion and an open Q&A focused on transferable ideas and co‑created solutions across different organisational contexts.

Chair

Jake Clark

Principal Advisor, Impact and Evaluation, CSIRO

Dr Jake Clark is a Principal Advisor within CSIRO’s Education and Outreach Impact and Evaluation Team, where he leads the design and implementation of monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) tools for the STEM Community Partnerships Program. He brings extensive expertise in quasi-experimental... Read More →

Speakers

Kristine Tuban

Regional Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, And Learning Technical Adviser, Save the Children

Martin Holmstrand

Technical Data Lead, Save the Children

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST
Waterfront 2 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Boundaries and bridges

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Education and training, International development, Information media and telecommunications
ID 289

11:00am ACST

How should we evaluate legal policy?

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST

Waterfront 1

Authors: Caitlin Morton, Maggie Hawkins (Attorney General's Department)
This session poses the question – how should we evaluate legal policy? Evaluators across all sectors encounter legal frameworks, yet few forums explicitly address how law itself can and should be evaluated. This session seeks to help carve out that space within evaluation practice.

Strong approaches to evaluating legal policy are critical to achieving just, fair, and secure society - the remit of the Attorney-General's Department. In this session, past and current evaluators from the AGD reflect on observations, challenges, and conversations, and invite discussion on what it looks like when legal policy is working well. We present an overview of existing dialogue on this question, and argue that it is critical to examine the social and ethical foundations of legal policy, the principles that inform legal policy, and how the law can support the operation of impactful legal policy.

We will investigate how law does and does not align with the beliefs and assumptions of the communities it touches, and how law is interpreted and put into practice. Together we will explore localisation as a major challenge and opportunity in evaluating legal policy – noting the persistent regional/metro divide in accessing legal services, and diversity between communities and across states, which always requires collaboration.

This session is critically important to evaluators as law touches all public policy, which in turn impacts the operations of not just federal governments, but local and state governments, private businesses, community organisations, not-for-profits, and more.

Chair

Lindsay Reilly

Speakers

Caitlin Morton

Independent Consultant

I’m Dr Caitlin Morton, I’m passionate about turning knowledge into power to help people solve the world’s biggest problems. I do this as an independent evaluator based on Awabakal Country in Newcastle, NSW Australia. I can help you use data and evidence to improve outcomes by... Read More →

Magdeline Hawkins

Evaluation Lead, Attorney General's Department

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Ethics and integrity

Format Short paper
Audience Level Advanced, Intermediate
Industry Public administration and safety
ID 262

11:00am ACST

Measuring what matters: Culturally responsive evaluation of a statewide ECEC strategy

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST

Rooms 1+2

Authors: Phillip Belling, NSW Department Of Education Jessica de Jesus, NSW Department Of Education, Rowan Savage, Aboriginal Education & Communities, NSW Department of Education

Presenter note: Rowan has been an important contributor to this work and was originally hoped to join the presentation in person. As the opportunity to present at aes26 was only confirmed in the past two days, the short timeframe unfortunately made it difficult to arrange for him to travel to Garrmalang | Darwin. We’re sorry Rowan can’t be here in person and acknowledge the perspective and contribution he has brought to the work being shared.

Government strategies to improve Aboriginal children’s access to culturally safe, high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) are increasingly ambitious, and also increasingly measured. Yet many mainstream outcome frameworks privilege what is easy to count (enrolments, attendance, completions) over what Aboriginal families and communities say really matters (cultural safety, belonging, relationships, self-determination, and thriving). And while there is a growing number of evaluations of pilots, projects and small scale programs, there are few examples of culturally responsive evaluations of large-scale, multi-program and strategy-level initiatives.

This session shares an approach being used in the NSW Department of Education to build culturally meaningful process indicators and outcome measures for a statewide ECEC strategy. Drawing on lessons from recent evaluations of state-level ECEC programs and evaluation designs, we present a practical method for moving from policy intent to measurable outcomes without collapsing cultural concepts into deficit metrics.

The approach combines: (1) outcome-domain mapping that starts with Aboriginal-led commitments and community-informed constructs; (2) a set of core indicators that deliberately pairs quantitative indicators with qualitative evidence (yarning, narrative case examples, workforce and service reflections) so that relationships and cultural safety are visible; and (3) governance and data sensemaking processes that keep Aboriginal authority central in interpreting evidence and deciding what “good” looks like across diverse local contexts, while remaining accountable to statewide commitments.

We also discuss why “measuring what matters” is a safeguarding task. In recent evaluation work we observed that indicators can unintentionally shift attention, create compliance behaviours, redistribute decision rights, and generate cultural load. In this session we outline design choices that mitigate these risks, including co-design checkpoints, minimum evidence standards, and using indicators as prompts for shared interpretation rather than as league tables.

Participants will leave with an adaptable template for developing culturally meaningful indicators and outcome measures, and examples they can translate to their own settings and evaluation partnerships.

Chair

Deb Moyle

Speakers

Phillip Belling

Senior Evaluator, Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, NSW Department of Education

Talk to me about evaluation that transforms lives and enables social change. I’m interested in realist, developmental, embedded and responsive evaluation; evaluation in complex education systems; evaluation capacity building; and how we make credible evaluative judgements about... Read More →

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST
Rooms 1+2 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Ethics and integrity

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Community and social services, Not for profit Philanthropy
ID 230

11:00am ACST

Application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) in evaluation within the social services context

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST

Rooms 3+4

Authors: Catherine Wade (Parenting Research Centre), Matt Healy (First Person Consulting), Fiona May (Parenting Research Centre)
Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a systems methodology that maps and measures the relationships between actors in a system - revealing how information flows, where influence sits, and where collaboration can be strengthened. While widely used in research and policy contexts internationally, SNA remains underutilised in Australian evaluation practice, particularly in the social services sector where understanding partnership networks is critical to achieving outcomes.

This paper presents SNA as both a practical evaluation tool and a method for surfacing the relational dynamics that traditional approaches often miss. Drawing on applied examples from recent social services projects, we demonstrate how SNA can be used to assess whether programs are building the collaborative networks they intend to, identify structural gaps in service systems, and track network change over time. One example used to showcase the method will be a project exploring the social networks that mothers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds rely on when making decisions about infant sleep practices.

The project aims to map these networks, identify the types of information shared, and examine how they influence mothers’ engagement with safe-sleep education.

Three key messages will be explored in the paper: how SNA complements existing evaluation methods rather than replacing them; what it takes to design and implement SNA in complex service environments; and how findings can be communicated to diverse stakeholders in ways that are actionable and meaningful.

The presentation combines a conceptual introduction with worked examples, and will include structured discussion inviting participants to consider how SNA might apply to their own evaluation contexts.

Chair

Lucy Walker

Senior Consultant, Nation Partners

Lucy is an emerging evaluator who has worked in research and evaluation for the past 7 years. She has experience working across Victorian state government, private sector consulting and research institutions. Lucy is an interdisciplinary practitioner, with a strong background in environmental... Read More →

Speakers

Matt Healey

Principal Consultant | Co-Founder, First Person Consulting

I'm Matt, Co-Founder of First Person Consulting. I work at the intersection of systems thinking, evaluation and design — helping people make sense of messy, complex problems with a healthy dose of humour and humility. I also co-host the It Depends Podcast, where the honest answer... Read More →

Catherine Wade

Principal Research Specialist, Parenting Research Centre

Dr Catherine Wade is Principal Research Specialist at the Parenting Research Centre and a Research Affiliate with the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Sydney. Catherine is leading a programme of research at the Parenting Research Centre investigating aspects of the... Read More →

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST
Rooms 3+4 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Traditional and new ways

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Community and social services
ID 140

11:00am ACST

Practical ways to make space for place in the Evaluation of Regreening

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST

Waterfront 3

Author: Alice Muller, World Vision
Evaluators and development practitioners need to understand how environmental changes impact and result from development programming. Often finding practical ways to do is a challenge, particularly where complex environmental, biodiversity and climate systems are involved, and where evaluators and practitioners come from social or economic backgrounds with limited biophysical or ecological training. This paper shares how we can better value place and understand environmental consequences in international development projects by letting evaluations be locally-led, with local knowledge and values at the center.

Drawing on real‑world examples from World Vision’s Regreening Communities work, the paper presents three simple tools used by communities t Together, these approaches value place by centring local and Indigenous knowledge and values, assessing change from a local perspective, in a standardised way and using spatial tools that together still contribute to organisational‑level evidence.

First, a community mapping and planning exercise makes space for diverse groups within a community to define what regreening and wellbeing mean in their own environments, surfacing cultural, livelihood and social values that are often invisible in standard indicator frameworks. Second, a community‑assessed Regreening Index provides a structured and repeatable way to assess biophysical conditions and trends over time in relation to community priorities, while still enabling consistent comparison across sites and projects. Third, spatial mapping of regreening sites using a powerful, but freely available tool adapted from the WASH sector, enables evaluators to examine patterns and cumulative effects at project and organisational levels.

While none of these tools is unique in isolation, when combined they lower barriers to including environmental considerations in evaluation practice and generate insights that strengthen learning, adaptive management and sustainability discussions, ethically. The presentation will share engaging practical examples and invite participants to reflect on opportunities to better value place within their own work.

Chair

Stephanie Carter

Director, HealthConsult

Speakers

Alice Muller

Senior Monitoring and Evidence Advisor, World Vision

An environmental scientist, working in international development, interested in evaluation and learning about all things community, trees, ecosystem restoration, climate action, scaling and systems transformation.
I also really like coffee and chatting about gardening, travel and animal anecdotes if you need a break anytime... Read More →

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:00am - 11:30am ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Traditional and new ways

Format Short paper
Audience Level Intermediate
Industry International development, Environment and climate change
ID 322

11:30am ACST

When no one has time for evaluation - building learning cultures that survive pressure

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:30am - 12:00pm ACST

Waterfront 1

Author: Su-Ann Drew (Grosvenor)
Many organisations value evaluation in principle but struggle to sustain it in practice, particularly when time is limited, priorities shift, or politically sensitive issues arise. Under pressure, evaluation is often treated as an optional task rather than a way of thinking embedded in everyday work. This short paper examines what allows evaluative thinking to persist under these conditions, especially where leadership support is intermittent, symbolic or short lived.

Chair

Lindsay Reilly

Speakers

Su-Ann Drew

Senior Manager, Grosvenor

Su-Ann is a Senior Manager specialising in program evaluation within Grosvenor’s public sector advisory practice. She has more than a decade of experience across management consulting, state government (including health, mental health, and alcohol and other drug policy and commissioning... Read More →

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:30am - 12:00pm ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Roots and routes

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational
Industry Public administration and safety, Not for profit Philanthropy, Community and social services
ID 188

12:00pm ACST

The ethics of independence – what does ‘independent evaluation’ mean in 2026?

Wednesday September 16, 2026 12:00pm - 12:30pm ACST

Hall 2

Author: Jo van Twest Farmer (Rooftop Social)

Independence is often posited as a primary means of ensuring evaluation is rigorous, trustworthy and fair. Independence is Norm 4 of the United Nation’s Evaluation Group Norms and Standards for Evaluation (2016), which states it is “necessary for credibility”. Built into this standard are two concepts – behavioural independence (evaluating without undue influence) and organisational independence (structures that support independent practice). For many in the evaluation landscape, the best means of ensuring independence has been for ‘independent evaluators’ to conduct ‘independent evaluations’.
Discussions around what constitutes independence have long been a feature of evaluation literature, but arguably there have never been so many pressures on maintaining independence in evaluation. There is growing interest in evaluation approaches where the relationships between program delivery and evaluation is less clear-cut, such as developmental, participatory and lived experience-led evaluations. As evaluation capability grows, evaluation functions are more widespread across teams and embedded in business-as-usual learning practice, rather than contracted out. Less positively, changing fiscal conditions place more pressure on organisations to undertake evaluation with less capacity for external expertise and support. The need to demonstrate impact to access funding in tightening funding environments means evaluations are higher stakes than ever, and there are often vested interests in demonstrating programs are effective.
This short paper will discuss what independence means in 2026, arguing that evaluation has moved beyond ‘organisational independence’ and must instead focus on how to support ‘behavioural independence’. Contemporary evaluation practice requires understandings of independence grounded in ethics and integrity. This approach directly challenges traditional role boundaries in evaluation, such as external versus internal or participant versus evaluator. In responding to the challenges of maintaining independence in 2026 and beyond, the presentation will suggest criteria to support evaluators to guide the ethics of their own practice, and a framework for upholding independent practice.

Chair

Sophie Henness

Consultant, ARTD Consultants

Speakers

Jo van Twest Farmer

Rooftop Social

Wednesday September 16, 2026 12:00pm - 12:30pm ACST
Hall 2

Boundaries and bridges

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Community and social services, Education and training, Health and disability, Not for profit Philanthropy, Public administration and safety
ID 214

12:00pm ACST

Change that Matters People in Place

Wednesday September 16, 2026 12:00pm - 12:30pm ACST

Waterfront 1

Author: Salli Cohen (The Policy Room)
This presentation explores the uncomfortable space where policy and evaluation structurally reinforce harm. Its objective is to challenge assumptions of neutrality and examine how evaluative frameworks can either illuminate or obscure inequity.
The core argument is threefold: (1) evaluation and policy are never neutral and must interrogate power; (2) systems alignment and cultural authority determine whether outcomes are real or performative; and (3) accountability must ask “for whom” evaluation and policy work; and who bears the cost.
The session blends applied case insight with structured reflection and peer dialogue to provoke critical engagement and practical recalibration.

Chair

Lindsay Reilly

Speakers

Salli Cohen

Founder, The Policy Room

Salli is a strategist, storyteller and a quiet force re-imagining what policy should be.

Guided by her values of equity, self-determination and respectful collaboration, and grounded in her principle of change that matters, she works with organisations and communities to ensure they have the tools, relationships and confidence to drive the changes desired by those they... Read More →

Wednesday September 16, 2026 12:00pm - 12:30pm ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Ethics and integrity

Format Short paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Not for profit Philanthropy, International development, Public administration and safety, Community and social services, Health and disability
ID 82

2:30pm ACST

Evaluation as a Bridge: The Multiple Hats of MEL in Scaling Government-led Graduation Programmes

Wednesday September 16, 2026 2:30pm - 3:00pm ACST

Waterfront 3

Authors: Kristian Paolo Torres, BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative, Tania Dora Warokka, BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative, Arnaldo Pellini, BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative
Programmes aiming to influence governance systems and policy reforms—particularly those using experimental approaches—require MEL functions that are able to move across design, strategy, context analysis, and sensemaking.

Traditional M&E often prioritizes linear accountability, struggling to measure influence on policies and behaviors (as noted by the ODI RAPID programme, 2006–2020).

This presentation shares the experience of the BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative, which partners with governments across six countries to scale the ‘Graduation’ approach through national social development systems (e.g. social protection, livelihood, labour and employment, etc.). Because UPGI’s success is measured by policy influence and system change rather than direct delivery, the MEL function must act as a strategic bridge rather than a neutral observer.

Drawing on our experience in Indonesia and the Philippines, we share how MEL supports country teams as adaptive units navigating two primary challenges: calibrating the interplay between political commitment, administrative feasibility, and technical quality; and designing for scale from the outset to ensure government ownership rather than isolated pilot results.

We argue that a team learning culture—rather than a "neutral" M&E function—is the essential infrastructure for this work. By establishing specific habits to capture field experience and inform strategic decisions, MEL acts as the "many-hatted" bridge required to navigate these dynamic systemic boundaries and prevent programmes from remaining stagnant.

We will share three core insights from our MEL experience:

1. How the evaluator’s role shifts to an active learning partner, framing field evidence to navigate political and administrative boundaries.
2. How practical tools—such as Capacity and Commitment Rubrics and Diaries—support teams in documenting for learning rather than reporting for compliance.
3. Real-world examples where structured reflection informed specific shifts in government engagement strategies.

The session will also engage the audience in a "Reflection Micro-Workshop" where participants will share insights from their own work and experiences.

Chair

Dru Armstrong

Evaluation and Impact Manager, Health and Wellbeing Queensland

Much of my work sits in the space of finding practical ways to bring systems thinking, equity and learning into public-sector evaluation while meeting the demand for quantification, attribution and economic value. I love the challenge of evaluating in complexity and initiatives that... Read More →

Speakers

Kristian Paolo Torres

Research, Evaluation, and Knowledge Management Specialist, BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative

Tania Dora Warokka

Lead MEL and Research, BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative

Wednesday September 16, 2026 2:30pm - 3:00pm ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Boundaries and bridges

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Community and social services, Not for profit Philanthropy, International development
ID 234

3:00pm ACST

The case for key monitoring questions in simplifying performance frameworks

Wednesday September 16, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm ACST

Waterfront 3

Author: Jack Rutherford, ARTD
Have you ever felt that the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Framework you developed or had to implement was potentially too complicated?

This presentation introduces Key Monitoring Questions (KMQs); a novel approach that builds on the well‑established logic of Results‑Based Accountability (RBA) to simplify M&E frameworks while strengthening their usefulness for decision‑making and reflection.

M&E Frameworks often become unintentionally complex. In the pursuit of rigour and comprehensiveness, evaluators and program designers can generate long lists of indicators, data sources and measurement requirements. While well‑intentioned, these expansive frameworks can overwhelm those responsible for implementation, leading to delays in data collection and reporting or abandoned learning processes.

Instead of attempting to measure every activity, output or incremental outcome, KMQs concentrate attention on purposeful questions drawn from RBA that the monitoring system must answer. This shift helps teams focus on what matters most by clarifying the purpose of monitoring and identifying the minimum information required to support meaningful learning.

The presentation will introduce four KMQs adapted from RBA and demonstrate how they streamline data collection and support evaluation and reflection:

1.How much was done?
2.How well was it done?
3.Who was affected?
4.How has the context changed?

The presentation will share three key messages:

1.Complex frameworks can undermine learning by overwhelming users with excessive data expectations.
2.KMQs provide a structured, disciplined way to sharpen focus and streamline indicator selection.
3.Using KMQs supports more sustainable monitoring practice, enabling teams to engage more deeply with the data that matters.

Before the session, you will be asked to reflect on your experiences developing or implementing M&E Frameworks, recognising the shared issues that KMQs address.

This session is targeted at foundational and intermediate evaluators, and commissioners and program staff who suspect their frameworks could be simpler and more effective.

Chair

Dru Armstrong

Evaluation and Impact Manager, Health and Wellbeing Queensland

Speakers

Jack Rutherford

Manager, ARTD

I entered into a career in evaluation in 2018, after completing my honours in behavioural ecology where I tried to teach colours to jumping spiders. The first project I ever managed was to develop a Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement Framework for an environmental data... Read More →

Wednesday September 16, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Traditional and new ways

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Education and training, Environment and climate change, Economic development tourism and infrastructure, Natural resources and energy, Community and social services
ID 102

4:00pm ACST

Developmental Evaluation or a Learning Organisation?

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST

Waterfront 2

Author: Caroline Henwood, The Ian Potter Foundation
Increasingly organisations are leaning into the “L” in MEL. Learning is a critical component of evaluation it is the opportunity to turn findings and insights into something practical to inform adaptation. However, evaluators often reflect on the report on the desk, or of evaluations occurring after decisions are made. Shifting the focus to learning creates a different space and dynamic for conversations to occur – a key practice in Developmental Evaluation.

Chair

Vanessa Hood

Director, Rooftop Social

I've been working as a facilitator and evaluator for over 20 years, in a wide range of contexts, including environment and financial literacy. I am a Director at Rooftop Social, a medium sized consulting firm, which provides services in evaluation, social research, facilitation and... Read More →

Speakers

Caroline Henwood

Research, Evaluation and Learning Manager, The Ian Potter Foundation

I am always intrigued by how we come to definitions, how words resonate differently for individuals and what it all means. On a more practical note! I am interested in people's perceptions on proportionality, how we think about it, and how we support it when it is often not what appears... Read More →

Laura Bird

Paul Ramsay Foundation

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST
Waterfront 2 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Boundaries and bridges

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Not for profit Philanthropy
ID 171

4:00pm ACST

Cultural Wisdom and Story Gathering: a participatory reflection session

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST

Rooms 1+2

Authors: Jessi Gidgup-Lovett (Rooftop Social), Duncan Rintoul (Rooftop Social)

This session invites participants into a short, participatory exploration of Cultural Wisdom and Story Gathering, grounded in relational practice in how to do business with First Nations peoples and communities.
Before choosing methods, indicators or measures of success, we need to ask more fundamental questions: Who are we doing business with? Who holds power? How will power be shared? Whose knowledge will guide us? What are we responsible for.
Using simple sensory and reflective activities, this session will invite you to internalise respect, reciprocity, responsibility, reconciliation, being, knowing and doing as practical foundations for ethical evaluation practice. It will also ask participants to think critically about their own positionality and how they enter relationships with First Nations peoples.
You will leave with a one-page grounding resource to support ongoing reflective and reflexive practice, with a simple commitment to listen, learn, reflect, act and carry forward what you are learning through this conference.

Chair

John Gilbert

Manager Monitoring & Evaluation, Country Fire Authority

I am a program evaluator with over 20 years of experience in bushfire and natural hazards community safety and emergency management. This has included roles in the emergency services, universities and peak bodies. In my current role at the Country Fire Authority, I lead the Monitoring... Read More →

Speakers

Jessi Gidgup-Lovett

Rooftop Social

Duncan Rintoul

Managing Director, Rooftop Social

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST
Rooms 1+2 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Ethics and integrity

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Education and training, Community and social services, Not for profit Philanthropy
ID 330

4:00pm ACST

Who Shapes What Counts? Collaboration as Ethical Design in Large-Scale Evaluation

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST

Waterfront 1

Author: Stefano Verrelli (The Salvation Army)
How do you build a national outcomes framework without flattening local realities, sidelining frontline practice wisdom, or reducing lived experience to an input rather than a shaping influence?

This presentation shares insights from an outcomes and impact evaluation of one of Australia’s largest homelessness service providers, spanning more than 100 programs, 700 practitioners, and around 40,000 clients annually. The evaluation aimed to develop and pilot a nationally relevant outcomes measurement framework before broader rollout, one that could work across diverse service models, jurisdictions, funding contexts, and client groups.

The challenge was not only technical, but ethical. A standardised framework risked privileging some perspectives over others, adding burden to already stretched services, and embedding measures that did not reflect frontline service realities or add value to people accessing support.

This presentation argues that, in large-scale evaluation, a staged and deliberate collaborative process across design, piloting, and refinement is a core ethical strategy. Using this case example, it shows how this approach made space for perspectives not always given meaningful influence in shaping outcomes evaluation at this scale, including frontline practitioners, practice leads, and people with lived and living experience. In doing so, it helped ensure that decisions about what outcomes mattered, how they were measured, and how the framework would work in practice were shaped by frontline realities and lived experience alongside competing system priorities.

The presentation offers a practical lesson for evaluators working across multiple sites and systems: ethical evaluation in practice depends on how frameworks are collaboratively developed, tested, and refined before implementation. The session will conclude with brief guided reflection questions to help attendees consider implications for their own evaluation practice.

Chair

Kizzy Gandy

Head, Evidence and Impact, Sax Institute

Speakers

Stefano Verrelli

Research and Evaluation Practitioner, The Salvation Army

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Ethics and integrity

Format Short paper
Audience Level Foundational
Industry Not for profit Philanthropy, Community and social services, Health and disability
ID 157

4:00pm ACST

Making space for influence: Danjoo Koorliny and decolonising evaluation to measure systems change

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST

Waterfront 3

Author: Doyen Radcliffe, Bajja Yungayimanha Collaboration
Indigenous-led systems change often begins with shifts in cultural authority, relationships, trust and institutional behaviour—long before formal outcomes or policy reform become visible. Yet many evaluation approaches continue to prioritise measurable outputs and short-term results, overlooking the relational, cultural and ethical foundations that drive meaningful change. This creates a gap between what First Nations communities experience as impact and what institutions recognise as evidence.

This presentation introduces the Danjoo Koorliny Five-Dimensional Indigenous Influence Model, developed through the Aboriginal-led impact evaluation of the Danjoo Koorliny movement in Western Australia. The model offers a practical and culturally grounded way to measure systems change by identifying and assessing influence across cultural, relational, behavioural, structural and transformational domains. Central to this work is a decolonising evaluation process that repositions cultural authority, Country and relational accountability as the foundation of ethical and rigorous evaluation. For First Nations evaluation, this means privileging Elder governance, community decision-making, Indigenous Data Sovereignty and culturally grounded methods such as yarning, storywork and outcome harvesting. For evaluation more broadly, it expands how evidence, value and impact are understood in complex systems and supports earlier identification of meaningful change.

The session will highlight three key messages. First, influence is the primary mechanism and measurable pathway of Indigenous-led systems change. Second, decolonising evaluation strengthens methodological rigour by integrating Indigenous and Western approaches rather than positioning them in opposition. Third, valuing place, relationships and cultural integrity improves the relevance, integrity and usefulness of evaluation for communities, policymakers and funders.

The presentation will combine short input, reflective discussion and interactive activities. Participants will explore practical tools, apply the framework to their own contexts, and reflect on how measuring influence can strengthen systems thinking and evaluation practice across diverse sectors.

Chair

Stuart Raetz

Monitoring, Evaluation And Learning Lead, Climate Resilient Communities

Stuart Raetz is the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Lead for Climate Resilient Communities, supporting climate investment and integration across the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) international development program. He has 20 years' experience as... Read More →

Speakers

Doyen Radcliffe

CEO & AES Fellow, Bajja Yungayimanha Collaboration

Doyen Radcliffe is a Yamatji Naaguja man from the Midwest region of Western Australia. He is the Founder and CEO of Bajja Yungayimanha Collaboration, a First Nations-led consultancy, and a respected First Nations leader, evaluator and community development practitioner with decades... Read More →

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Traditional and new ways

Format Short paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Education and training, Information media and telecommunications, Economic development tourism and infrastructure, Health and disability, Environment and climate change, International development, Arts and recreation services, Community and social services, Natur
ID 40

4:00pm ACST

Strategy evaluation. Does it have to be this hard?

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST

Rooms 3+4

Authors: David Stuart (Creative Australia)
Strategies are everywhere involving all sorts of topics and all kinds of goals, actions and stakeholders. Strategy defines important goals and outlines how an organisation's activities will meet those goals. You would think that strategy and evaluation were great friends. But why is strategy evaluation so low profile in evaluation literature, and so hard to pull off? This paper reflects on several attempts at strategy-based evaluation and the lessons for fruitful strategy evaluation including the role for evaluators and evaluation in supporting strong strategy design and success.

Chair

David Marchant

Founder and Managing Director, Inform Economics

Speakers

David Stuart

Director Evaluation And Impact Measurement, Creative Australia

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST
Rooms 3+4 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Traditional and new ways

Format Short paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Arts and recreation services, Public administration and safety
ID 166

4:00pm ACST

Using Evidence to End Homelessness: Lessons for Evaluators from Lígia Teixeira

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST

Hall 2

In this keynote speaker interview, Eleanor Williams will speak with Lígia Teixeira about her new book How to Use Evidence to End Homelessness: For Smarter, More Impactful Action, and the growing global movement to use evidence, data and evaluation to prevent and end homelessness.

The discussion will consider how evidence can be embedded in decision-making, and the role evaluators can play in supporting prevention, implementation and continuous improvement. Through practical examples and international case studies, Teixeira will share insights for anyone seeking to strengthen the use of evidence in complex policy environments. This session will form the Australian launch of How to Use Evidence to End Homelessness: For Smarter, More Impactful Action whilst the books haven't landed in the country just yet, there will be promotional cards with discount codes so people can purchase their copy when it's available.

Chair

Andrew Boyle

Andrew Boyle Consulting

Andrew Boyle is an Australian monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) specialist and Principal Consultant at Andrew Boyle Consulting. His work focuses on organisational learning, Theory of Change, evaluation capacity strengthening and culturally responsive practice, particularly... Read More →

Speakers

Lígia Teixeira

Founder and Chief Executive, Centre for Homelessness Impact

Dr Lígia Teixeira is the Founder and Chief Executive of the Centre for Homelessness Impact , part of the UK Government’s What Works Network. She works with governments and cities to rethink how homelessness is understood and addressed – using data, evidence, and experimentation... Read More →

Eleanor Williams

Managing Director, Australian Centre for Evaluation

Eleanor Williams is the Managing Director of the Australian Centre for Evaluation in the Commonwealth Department of the Treasury. She has worked in a variety of senior executive roles in the Victorian and Australian Governments, and is a former board member of the Australian Evaluation... Read More →

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:00pm - 4:30pm ACST
Hall 2

Traditional and new ways

Format Short paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
ID 91

11:00am ACST

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11:30am ACST

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12:00pm ACST

2:30pm ACST

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4:00pm ACST

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