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/

arrow_back View All Dates

9:00am ACST

Plenary: Selwyn Button "Insight that Delivers: How Good Evaluation Shapes Better Policy and Practice", handover to aes27

Friday September 18, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am ACST

Hall 2

Insight that Delivers: How Good Evaluation Shapes Better Policy and Practice
Selwyn Button, Commissioner, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Stream, Australian Productivity Commission

Good evaluation does more than measure outcomes or meet accountability requirements — it helps shape better public policy and improve practice across government and community sectors. In a context of increasing complexity, constrained resources, and rising expectations, evaluation provides critical evidence to inform decision-making, strengthen services, and improve outcomes for communities.This keynote explores how evaluation can move beyond compliance to become a practical tool for learning, adaptation, and system improvement. Drawing on examples of formal and informal evaluation processes from the Productivity Commission, community-controlled health organisations, government departments and consulting experiences, the session will examine how evaluation helps organisations understand what works, for whom, and under what conditions.The keynote will also reflect on the realities faced by public servants and community organisations, including balancing evidence with operational pressures, engaging stakeholders meaningfully, and translating findings into action. Effective evaluation strengthens accountability, informs investment decisions, and supports more responsive, equitable, and impactful services.

Followed by: handover to the aes27 International Evaluation Conference, Brisbane, Australia

Speakers

Selwyn Button

Commissioner, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Stream, Australian Productivity Commission

Selwyn Button was appointed for a 5-year term as a full time Commissioner in June 2024. Selwyn is Gungarri man from Southwest Queensland and an experienced leader of health, education and governance organisations across the public, private, not-for-profit and community-controlled... Read More →

Friday September 18, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am ACST
Hall 2

Plenary

Format Keynote address
Audience Level Advanced, Foundational, Intermediate

10:30am ACST

How to evaluate a company

Friday September 18, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am ACST

Waterfront 2

Author: Gerard Atkinson, Iris Ethics
Evaluation is typically applied to discrete policies and programs, yet organisations themselves require systematic assessment of whether they achieve their goals and align with their values. This presentation examines how evaluation practice can be adapted to assess an entire company, drawing on a case study from Iris Ethics where we designed and implemented an integrated company-level evaluation plan.

The objective is to demonstrate how evaluative thinking can bridge the fragmented approaches currently dominating corporate contexts. Here strategy evaluation focuses on financial/operational objectives, ESG operates as carved-out compliance, and program evaluation remains siloed. This matters because organisations exist within interconnected systems: programs, profitability, and stakeholder value cannot genuinely be disentangled, yet corporate evaluation practice rarely addresses them holistically.

The presentation makes three core arguments. First, whole-of-company evaluation requires integrated thinking across traditionally separate domains: financial performance, operational delivery, social impact, and stakeholder value, grounded in evaluation's systematic logic whilst incorporating corporate strategy, ESG frameworks, market research methodologies, and economic value-for-investment thinking. Second, evaluability must be embedded from the start: mission and vision statements developed with explicit monitoring and evaluation capability, avoiding vague aspirations that cannot be assessed. Third, evaluation must be integrated into operational platforms rather than existing as separate reporting exercises, making assessment continuous rather than episodic.

The presentation follows a case study structure using a start-up example: establishing why whole-of-company evaluation matters, presenting the step-by-step framework (including whole-of-company logic models), demonstrating how evaluation integrates with strategy, governance, financial management, and competitive positioning, and identifying transferable lessons. Building on methodologies developed for NFP and government sectors but adapted to incorporate profitability and commercial risk, it demonstrates evaluation's applicability beyond traditional boundaries.

It will comprise a structured Q&A and discussion on barriers to integrated company evaluation, and invites participants to identify how the profession can engage with this frontier of practice.

Speakers

Gerard Atkinson

Managing Director, Iris Ethics

Gerard Atkinson is Managing Director and founder of Iris Ethics, Australia's first on-demand Human Research Ethics Committee serving the social research, market research, and evaluation sectors. He started his international career in market research and evaluation in 2001, learning... Read More →

Friday September 18, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am ACST
Waterfront 2 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Boundaries and bridges

Format Short paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Public administration and safety, Community and social services, Economic development tourism and infrastructure
ID 24

10:30am ACST

From framework to practice: What does it take to implement shared impact in place-based work?

Friday September 18, 2026 10:30am - 11:30am ACST

Rooms 1+2

Authors: Nicholas Hill Place Australia, Eve Millar, Place Australia
The use of place-based initiatives (PBIs) to address complex and entrenched disadvantage is expanding across Australia. These initiatives typically go beyond the delivery of single programs and involve cross-sector partnerships that place communities at the centre of efforts to address local problems. While a growing number of initiatives are demonstrating impact, the diversity of approaches, frameworks, and indicators used contributes to a fragmented evidence base. Inconsistencies in how impact is conceptualised and reported limit opportunities for shared learning and present a barrier to the growth and sustainability of the place-based ecosystem.

PLACE Australia is working collaboratively with stakeholders across the ecosystem—including government, philanthropy, not-for-profits, and community organisations—to develop a shared impact framework with a set of flexible indicators that more consistently demonstrate the impact of PBIs, support ongoing learning, and strengthen the sector. As the framework moves from development to implementation, a number of practical challenges arise. These include how shared indicators can be applied flexibly across diverse initiatives, how to balance consistency with local adaptation, how frameworks can support learning rather than compliance, and how Indigenous knowledge and community voice can be embedded in practice.

This roundtable brings together evaluators and practitioners to explore these challenges and identify practical pathways for implementation. Through facilitated discussion, participants will share their practice insights on implementation opportunities, risk and design considerations. The discussion will inform the next phase of testing and implementation of the shared impact framework.

Participants will be invited to reflect on the following questions:

1.How can shared indicators be consistently applied across diverse place-based initiatives while remaining meaningful to local contexts?

2.How can shared impact approaches support learning and improvement without becoming compliance-driven reporting requirements?

3.What risks and opportunities should be considered when implementing shared impact approaches across the place-based ecosystem?

4.What is needed to support the implementation and uptake of the shared impact framework across the sector?

Speakers

Nicholas Hill

Strengthening Place-based Impact Lead, PLACE Australia

Eve Millar

Director (Data, Evidence and Practice), Place

Friday September 18, 2026 10:30am - 11:30am ACST
Rooms 1+2 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Boundaries and bridges

Format Round table
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Not for profit Philanthropy, Community and social services, Health and disability, Education and training, Environment and climate change
ID 281

11:30am ACST

Staying Grounded in Complexity: Designing an M&E System for Counter-Trafficking in Persons

Friday September 18, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm ACST

Waterfront 1

Authors: Anne Stephens, Ethos of Engagement, Jill Thomas
This presentation explores the design of a systemic Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system for counter-trafficking in persons (CTIP) in the ASEAN region. Developed in 2023, the system supports the adoption and implementation of three victim-centred and gender-sensitive guides for counter trafficking in persons, in use across ASEAN member states. The presentation focuses on how systemic, participatory approaches to evaluation design can enhance uptake of evaluation and the role of a well-designed framework to support the capacity of individuals to monitor and evaluate their work.

The objective of this presentation is to present the process used to develop a simple to use M&E system within a complex setting; show the public facing guidance documents and tools used to support novice and highly skilled evaluators to use the system; and describe our challenges and learnings.

This presentation offers a timely and practice-grounded contribution to the evaluation field by demonstrating how evaluators can design for relevance, capacity development and impact in complex, real-world settings. It provides actionable insights for practitioners seeking to strengthen the value and use of evaluation in increasingly uncertain and contested environments.

Speakers

Anne Stephens

Director, Ethos of Engagement

Anne is the Director and Co-Founder of Ethos of Engagement Consulting a global and women-led research and evaluation firm. We work in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Central America, UK and USA. We use Inclusive Systemic Thinking to guide our methodology and approaches and diversity is... Read More →

Jill Thomas

Senior Consultant, J.A Thomas & Associates

Jill is an experienced evaluator and analyst, having worked in the health, higher education and finance sectors in major cities and far northern Queensland. Jill specialises in working with organisations to design and implement performance monitoring and evaluation frameworks, conduct... Read More →

Friday September 18, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Roots and routes

Format Long paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Education and training, Public administration and safety, Health and disability, International development, Community and social services
ID 180

12:00pm ACST

Creating impact culture empowered by evaluation: building bridges and blurring boundaries during a merger

Friday September 18, 2026 12:00pm - 12:30pm ACST

Waterfront 3

Authors: Virgina Thomas, Bioeconomy Science Institute Maiangi Taiao, Stewart Graham, Bioeconomy Science Institute Maiangi Taiao, Helen Percy, Bioeconomy Science Institute Maiangi Taiao
A culture of impact, empowered by evaluation, encourages accountability and learning, supporting projects to focus on outcomes, demonstrate efficacy and make improvements. Fostering such an environment promotes success, yet can be challenging to achieve, requiring leadership, communication, adaptability, capacity and capability building, and resources.

Our paper discusses the (co)creation of impact culture, and evaluation systems and tools, in the Bioeconomy Science Institute Maiangi Taiao, a new public research organisation created by merging four of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Crown Research Institutes (CRIs). Establishing an impact culture in this new organisation requires building bridges and blurring boundaries between the organisations and systems that have been merged.

While the four CRIs all had systems and tools to plan for and evaluate impact, the approaches were unique to each organisation, as were their impact cultures. Since the merger, colleagues have collaborated to bring the previously separate systems and tools together into a new evaluation ecosystem.

In our paper we focus on creating a cohesive impact culture, empowered by evaluation, through i. inter-organisational dialogue, ii. building an enabling environment for evaluation that is adaptable to different needs and functions, and iii. disseminating evaluation tools and resources and promoting evaluative thinking across organisations through collegial networks.

Using our experience as a case study, we will inspire our audience to reconsider the impact and evaluation culture, systems and tools in their own organisations using real time polling (e.g., Mentimeter) to encourage reflection and participation.

We draw on the work of Blundo and Canto (2019) and Ferre (2025) on building an evaluative culture including: creating a system that is adaptable to the different needs and functions of the legacy organisations, fostering dialogue across and beyond the evaluation sector to include fields such as economics and social science, and building capacity, capability and resources for evaluation.

Friday September 18, 2026 12:00pm - 12:30pm ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Boundaries and bridges

Format Short paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Natural resources and energy, Environment and climate change
ID 124

1:30pm ACST

The 2026 (Mostly-Serious) Crowd-Sourced Debate: Evaluation’s pluralism and its external influence

Friday September 18, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm ACST

Hall 2

Authors: Bethany Hanson, Tafe NSW, Emily Gates, Boston University, Martina Donkers
Strap in for a provocative, contentious, and fun session. We’re putting a spin on the classic debate where two teams will go head-to-head to argue the topic: “Evaluation’s pluralism strengthens its external influence.”

On the affirmative side, a spirited case for why pluralism is evaluation’s superpower. Surely leaning into our intersections with disciplines like policy, research and economics expands our reach, relevance, and impact. Embracing pluralism helps evaluators speak multiple “languages,” build trust with diverse stakeholders, and positions evaluation as a boundary‑spanning connector capable of influencing decisions in complex systems. Think: more collaboration, more innovation, and more doors opening because evaluators can flex and adapt.

The negative team will challenge! Doesn’t boundless pluralism stretch evaluation too far, making our unique identity fuzzy and our professional standards harder to uphold? Aren’t we risking dilution of expertise and inconsistencies in practice? Won’t trying to be “everything to everyone” only confuse commissioners and undermine the credibility we’ve spent decades building? Without firmer boundaries, evaluation risks becoming a methodological buffet with no clear value proposition at all.

And then there’s you- our third speaker. A debate without rebuttal is like an evaluation report without findings—unthinkable! So, you’ll choose a side and with a team of fellow audience-members and debaters, craft a knockout final argument for our third speakers.

Will it be chaotic? Quite possibly. Could things get messy? Almost definitely. Will you have FOMO if you miss it? Without a doubt.

Featuring thought leaders Amy Gullickson, Martina Donkers, Matt Healey, George Argyrous, Kate McKegg and AES Fellow, Rick Cummings, this session promises to be the highlight of the conference. Who will be victorious? Let the 2026 (Mostly-Serious) Crowd-Sourced Debate begin!

Speakers

Kate Mckegg

Director, The Kinnect Group

Kate has specialist skills in supporting evaluative thinking and practice in complex settings where people are innovating to create systems change. She has been applying these skills for over 25 years in government, non-government, philanthropic and community contexts, including many... Read More →

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 →

Rick Cummings

Emeritus Professor, Murdoch University

Rick Cummings is an Emeritus Professor in Public Policy at Murdoch University. He has 40 years of experience conducting evaluation studies in education, training, health, and crime prevention primarily for the state and commonwealth government agencies and the World Bank. He currently... Read More →

Bethany Hanson

Manager Review and Evaluation, Tafe NSW

Emily Gates

Associate Professor of Evaluation, Boston College

Emily Gates is a tenured associate professor at Boston College whose research explores how evaluation can support meaningful, values-driven change in complex systems. Her work bridges theory and practice, spanning more than 30 publications and two coauthored books: Evaluative Inquiry... Read More →

Martina Donkers

George Argyrous

Rooftop Social

Friday September 18, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm ACST
Hall 2

Boundaries and bridges

Format Big room
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Natural resources and energy, Economic development tourism and infrastructure, Education and training, Community and social services, Not for profit Philanthropy
ID 272

1:30pm ACST

Building critical thinking into your writing

Friday September 18, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm ACST

Waterfront 1

Authors: John Guenther, Batchelor Institute, Nicole Tujague, Southern Cross University, Anthea Rutter, Honorary Research Fellow, Jeffery Adams, Eastern Institute of Technology
The editorial team of the Evaluation Journal of Australasia publishes a broad range of evaluation articles covering evaluation practice, theory, and application. One of the issues that regularly arises for reviewers and editors is the depth of thinking expressed in manuscripts. In most cases this concern could be addressed with more critical thinking, particularly in manuscripts that describe evaluation findings, or discuss elements of evaluation practice.

In this interactive session the editorial team will discuss how to write with a more critical approach. This may be of value, not just in writing for journal articles, but in reports, and in framing evaluation recommendations, developing theories of change, logic models and discussing evaluation implications.

We will first discuss what ‘critical thinking’ means from theoretical and practical perspectives, before providing some examples of how writing can be changed from being a largely uncritical and surface level description, towards a deeper critical approach that engages with theory, with existing literature and with logic, judgement and arguments aligned with evaluative thinking.

We will conclude the session with some practical examples that participants can work through together and discuss with the broader group. Our intent is to help evaluators and anyone who writes reports and articles to enrich their writing so that readers can draw conclusions based on evidence, argument, reasoning and logic, while at the same time ensuring clarity and easy reading.

Speakers

John Guenther

Research Leader, Education and Training, Batchelor Institute

John Guenther is a senior researcher and evaluator with the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, based in Darwin. Much of his work has been based in the field of education. He has worked extensively with community-based researchers in many remote parts of the Northern... Read More →

Nicole Tujague

Senior Lecturer, Southern Cross University

Jeff Adams

Managing Editor EJA, Evaluation Journal of Australasia | Eastern Institute of Technology

I am the Managing Editor of the Evaluation Journal of Australasia - talk to me about publishing in, or reviewing for the journal. I am also Professor of Public Health at Eastern Institute of Technology, Auckland.

Friday September 18, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Traditional and new ways

Format Long paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Education and training
ID 41

2:30pm ACST

Closing plenary: Emily Gates "When “What’s Right” is Contested: Ethical Reflexivity in Systemic Change"

Friday September 18, 2026 2:30pm - 3:30pm ACST

Hall 2

When “What’s Right” is Contested: Ethical Reflexivity in Systemic Change
Emily Gates, Associate Professor of Evaluation, Boston College

Ethics in evaluation is often treated as a matter of personal values, organisational commitments, or compliance with professional guidelines. But in systemic change, ethics becomes an ongoing, relational practice that asks us to hold space for hard questions and disagreement about “what’s right.”

In this session, we’ll make space for diverse perspectives and value the contexts and communities in which evaluation happens. We’ll practice ethical reflexivity together using photos, comics, and other visual moments from real evaluation work to explore:

How our roles change when we evaluate systems instead of programs, and how we decide what responsible involvement looks like.
How we navigate values, perspectives, and power, while avoiding the reproduction of unjust dynamics.
How to assess “success” when outcomes are emergent, contributions are multi directional, and interpretations differ.

At its heart, this session sharpens the questions we ask of ourselves and each other, strengthening the ethical reflexivity needed to act with integrity when “what’s right” is genuinely contested.

Followed by conference close

Speakers

Emily Gates

Associate Professor of Evaluation, Boston College

Friday September 18, 2026 2:30pm - 3:30pm ACST
Hall 2

Plenary

Format Keynote address
Audience Level Advanced, Foundational, Intermediate

9:00am ACST

10:30am ACST

10:30am ACST

11:30am ACST

12:00pm ACST

1:30pm ACST

1:30pm ACST

2:30pm ACST

Get help with the event