aes26 International Evaluation Conference: Full Schedule

This is the draft aes26 program, subject to change. To register for workshops and the conference, go to: https://www.aes26.aes.asn.au/

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10:30am ACST

From Paper to People: Community-Centred Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for Vanuatu Education & Training Sector

Thursday September 17, 2026 10:30am - 11:30am ACST

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Authors: Jill Juliane Wai, Vanuatu Australia Education Support Program, Fremden Yanhambath, Vanuatu Australia Education Support Program, Ellis Silas, Vanuatu Skills Partnership, Harrison Selmen, Vanuatu Skills Partnership

How can MEL stay grounded in communities while producing findings useful to decision-makers and participants? Panel draws on the Vanuatu Australia Education Support Program and Vanuatu Skills Partnership to explore ethical MEL guided by Beauchamp and Childress’s principles. Leaders trace an MEL cycle: co‑design with communities, participatory collection and analysis, and intentional report‑back. Methods include outcome harvesting, positive deviance, and strategic communications to surface local knowledge and influence reform. Participants will examine examples and strategies for integrating community feedback into evaluation design.

Key insights:

1. Enabling conditions: institutional permission, trust, leadership.

2. Community‑defined success.

3. Decolonising reporting to inform reform.

Speakers

Jill Juliane Wai

Planning and Systems Coordinator, Vanuatu Australia Education Support Program

Fremden Yanhambath

Team Leader, Vanuatu Australia Education Support Program

Ellis Silas

Quality Systems Manager, Vanuatu Skills Partnership

Mr. Ellis Silas is a 38yr old male, currently employed under the Vanuatu Skills Partnership (an Australian Government funded program in Vanuatu) as the Quality Systems Manager. His key role is to be responsible for the ongoing consolidation of an effective implementation and monitoring... Read More →

Harrison Selmen

Vanuatu Skills Partnership

Thursday September 17, 2026 10:30am - 11:30am ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Ethics and integrity

Format Long paper
Audience Level Advanced
Industry Education and training
ID 249

1:30pm ACST

What Does It Take to Make Evaluation Work in Real-World Settings?

Thursday September 17, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm ACST

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Authors: Mandy Charman, Sarah Ryan

As governments increase focus on outcomes, evidence and accountability, community service organisations are under growing pressure to strengthen data collection, outcomes measurement and evaluation practice. Yet these environments, shaped by complex funding models, reporting requirements and workforce pressures, are rarely designed with evaluation in mind.
This presentation draws on the experience of the Outcomes Practice and Evidence Network within Victoria’s Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare over the past eight years, working across Victoria’s child and family services sector. Positioned between government, service organisations and evaluators, OPEN offers a rare cross-system perspective on how evaluation is experienced in practice.
We will share practical insights, building a grounded understanding of how service settings experience evaluation and how approaches can be adapted to better support learning, improvement and outcomes.
Despite established literature on building organisational evaluative culture, there’s been limited focus on how to achieve this across a whole service system. This presentation reflects on that gap, exploring what it means to support evaluation capability across a sector shaped by cross-system relationships.
The session shares a learning journey rather than fixed model - what has worked, what has not, and what questions this raises.
Three key insights will be explored:
1. Understanding context is foundational – challenges are often structural and relational, not technical.
2. Evaluation support requires adaptation – commonly used approaches may not work as expected in complex service environments; trust, shared language and sustained engagement are critical.
3. This is a system question – strengthening evaluation requires attention to capability and how government expectations, commissioning and evaluation practice interact.
The session, aligning with Boundaries and Bridges and Roots and Routes, combines reflections from OPEN with a community sector partner, alongside interactive discussions exploring grounding evaluation in service contexts while strengthening connections across the evaluation ecosystem.

Speakers

Mandy Charman

The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare

Thursday September 17, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Boundaries and bridges

Format Long paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Community and social services, Not for profit Philanthropy
ID 184

3:30pm ACST

Finding your space - the psychological, organisational and political dynamics of being a resilient evaluator

Thursday September 17, 2026 3:30pm - 4:30pm ACST

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Authors: John Stoney, DSS, Kim Grey, AES President, Ruth Nicholls, Australian Centre for Evaluation, Samantha Mayes, Systems, Planning and Analysis Australia
The idea of keeping going in the face of obstacles is a recurring cultural theme: Nelson Mandela asked us not to judge him by his successes, but by how often he fell down and got back up again. Wise evaluator Eleanor Chelimsky told us that evaluators need to understand our context to win allies and collaborate.

The panel aims to support practitioners to identify, understand and navigate challenges from ethical, good practice and self-care perspectives.

The panel draws on many sources - our favourite proverbs and inspiring leaders - as well as psychology, philosophy and the evaluation literature.

The beneficial effects of identity and belonging will be unpacked, along with how each of us can nurture these powerful drivers of self-care through engaging with evaluation as a profession. This draws on social identity theory and the evidence for the ‘social cure’, which suggests that social groups and a sense of community may be as beneficial as regular exercise - promoting adjustment, coping and well-being.

What do evaluators think supports their resilience? Research into evaluator resilience identifies features of individual and institutional dimensions that support adaptability, including soft skills, relationships, communication skills, flexibility, and professional confidence to refer to codes of ethics, plus organisational mechanisms for discussing rigour and integrity with stakeholders, managers or commissioners, normalising ethical practice.

We’ll also explore the contexts in which we often practice - the barriers, set-backs or cycles, in the dynamic world that evaluation is part of, including the drivers of expansion and contraction in evaluation activity, variation across levels of change (global, national, organisational or people driven), and the dynamic interacting forces that drive cycles to flow at varying or contradictory pace. This can have implications for us as practitioners, requiring adaptability, resilience and self-care, but can also affect the evaluation discipline and profession.

Speakers

Kim Grey

President, Australian Evaluation Society

Ruth Nicholls

Director, Treasury

I live and work on Ngunnawal Country. I’ve worked in research and evaluation roles for over 20 years, mainly within government across of range of social policy including health, disability, community development, and First Nations contexts. In my current role with the Australian... Read More →

Samantha Mayes

Lead - Evaluation and Review, Systems, Planning and Analysis Australia

Samantha is an experienced evaluation practitioner and social psychology researcher. With a background in government and consulting she has specialised in policy development, program evaluation and capacity building. She pairs advanced technical training with ongoing doctoral research... Read More →

John Stoney

Assistant Director, DSS

I’m an Assistant Director in the Evaluation Hub in the Department of Social Services. With my team mates I provide technical advice and support on evaluation to policy and program colleagues across the department. I also help deliver the Evaluation Readiness Service (ERS) which... Read More →

Thursday September 17, 2026 3:30pm - 4:30pm ACST
Waterfront 2 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Boundaries and bridges

Format Long paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Environment and climate change, Health and disability, Public administration and safety
ID 192

4:00pm ACST

A social worker, an astrophysicist and an economist walk into a bar...

Thursday September 17, 2026 4:00pm - 5:00pm ACST

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Authors: Kate Cherry, CSIRO, Jake Clark, CSIRO, David Marchant, Inform Economics
Stepping into the unknown and daunting space of economic evaluation represented a new challenge for the Impact and Evaluation team in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Education and Outreach. In collaboration with our more experienced guide, external consultant Inform Economics, we successfully delivered a cost benefit analysis of CSIRO’s Generation STEM Links program, funded by the New South Wales Government through the Science and Industry Endowment Fund. This evaluation generated valued learnings for all involved and created new impact evidence. This economic evidence was utilised by our program delivery and industry engagement teams and was significant to our government funders and current public policy.

Economic evaluations are a rare approach in program evaluation, and almost non-existent in the STEM education sector, which prioritises learning outcomes and lacks economic evaluation capability. Navigating between theory and the realities of practice to deliver a cost-benefit analysis was challenging; by sharing our experiences and learnings we aim to inspire others to take up the challenge.

As Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO has been engaging partners in STEM education programs and evaluations for over 40 years. The Impact and Evaluation team is generating and sharing new evidence to inform practice and decision-making in our work and the STEM education ecosystem.

This session features insights from CSIRO and Inform Economics, with a focus on their collaboration to undertake a cost benefit analysis. This session will cover:

•deciding to undertake an economic evaluation
•data collection and analysis methods used
•capabilities required to do a CBA
•findings from the Generation STEM Links cost-benefit analysis
•experiences of this cross-sector partnership
•key lessons learned from the project and future implications

This session will be of interest to those have undertaken or are considering undertaking an economic evaluation.

Speakers

Kate Cherry

Principal Advisor, Impact and Evaluation, CSIRO

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 →

David Marchant

Founder and Managing Director, Inform Economics

Thursday September 17, 2026 4:00pm - 5:00pm ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Roots and routes

Format Long paper
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Education and training
ID 225

10:30am ACST

1:30pm ACST

3:30pm ACST

4:00pm ACST

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