aes26 International Evaluation Conference

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

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.

Authors: Emma Weaver, Menzies, Shiree Mack, Menzies, Caroline Miller, Menzies, Louise Maple-Brown, Menzies
The Merne Mwerre Artweye Areye-ke (MMAA) diabetes prevention program was developed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 6-11 years and their caregivers in Central Australia in response to community concerns about the increasingly high rate of youth obesity and type 2 diabetes in the region. The program is being delivered and evaluated in partnership between Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, the Aboriginal community-controlled health service, and Menzies School of Health Research across ten communities. While grounded in community leadership and co-facilitation by Aboriginal staff, the program is being delivered through a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to facilitate evaluation of clinical effectiveness.

This creates an ethical tension; RCTs privilege pre-specified outcomes, standardisation, and methodological control, whereas community-led initiatives require relational accountability, flexibility, and responsiveness to local priorities. The evaluation therefore confronts questions of power - whose knowledge counts, who defines success, and how competing accountabilities are balanced.

To navigate these tensions, the evaluation framework integrates adaptive qualitative inquiry alongside quantitative measures. Iterative feedback loops, reflective field notes, and ongoing dialogue with local leaders have supported transparency and ethical responsiveness. Program adaptations have included prioritising relationship-building, embedding local language and strengths-based framing, providing practical supports for participation, and reframing outcomes to reflect change valued by families and communities. The evaluation has also shifted from conventional semi-structured interviews to culturally grounded yarning approaches, recognising Indigenous ways of knowing as critical forms of evidence.

This presentation, delivered as a dialogue between an Aboriginal facilitator and a non-Indigenous evaluator, will critically reflect on trade-offs, missed assumptions, and lessons learned. It will explore how evaluators can uphold methodological rigour while prioritising differing voices, acknowledging power, and remaining accountable to community-defined values. Transferable strategies will be shared for ethically navigating complex, culturally grounded evaluations.

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?

Authors: Arun Jyothi Callapilli (Policy Performance) Charlie Tulloch (Policy Performance) 

The session focuses on building skills in designing infographics and making effective data visualisation choices to enhance evaluation reporting. The session objective is to equip new and experienced evaluators with practical skills to transform traditional evaluation reports into clear, engaging and actionable visual based outputs.

This is important because evaluation reports are often text heavy and dense with evidence and associate findings. However, without effective visualisation, critical insights may be overlooked or misunderstood. Infographics can help bridge this gap by transforming evaluation evidence and findings into clear, engaging visual reports that enhance reader understanding and engagement and are more likely to be used.

The session is grounded in utilisation-focused evaluation principles (developed by Michael Quinn Patton), emphasising the importance of designing reports that facilitate use and effectively communicate significant findings to intended audiences.

The session’s main aims are to share and build knowledge and skills in:
•    visual data story telling techniques
•    applying effective design principles
•    understanding the strengths and limitations of different visual choices
•    accessibility considerations
•    avoiding common data visualisation pitfalls
•    tips and techniques on creating infographics
•    promoting consistency and accessibility in data presentations

This is a skill-building session using real-life case studies. Attendees will explore a range of tools, tips and visualisation choices, making live design decisions. They will work in small groups round tables to discuss options and apply principles of good design to create their own visuals, creating a collaborative and participatory learning environment.

Authors: Ruth Nicholls, Treasury. Eleanor Williams, ACE, Tony Kiessler, Australian Indigenous Psychology, Liz Wren, Kowa, Jade Maloney, ARTD, Nigel McPaul, Dementia Org
In an era of public sector reform, the evaluation profession is being reshaped from multiple directions. In Australia, this is occurring through two intersecting pathways: the Australian Public Service (APS) Evaluation Profession, established as part of broader APS Reform; and the ongoing question of professionalisation within the Australian Evaluation Society (AES) and the evaluation field more broadly. This panel explores how these two “routes” to professionalism interact, reinforce and sometimes challenge one another. The discussion asks how evaluation can remain grounded in its core professional principles of rigour, ethics, cultural responsiveness and learning; while adapting to new institutional expectations, roles and accountabilities.

Using the APS Evaluation Profession Strategy as a starting point, panellists will reflect on how professionalism is being articulated, operationalised and experienced within government. They will consider what it means to professionalise evaluation inside a public service context shaped by reform agendas, capability frameworks and system stewardship.

At the same time, the panel will widen the lens to examine how professionalism has traditionally been understood within the AES: through standards, competencies, peer accountability and professional identity. We will explore what this means for First Nations Evaluators.

Rather than assuming these perspectives naturally align, the panel will surface key tensions and questions. Who defines what “good” or “professional” evaluation looks like? How do institutional reform agendas interact with professional norms developed within the evaluation community? What happens when professional judgement, independence or methodological standards are tested by political urgency, contested evidence or strong beliefs? And how do unconscious biases and assumptions shape whose knowledge is valued and whose evidence is trusted? What might be lost with professionalisation - in particular diversification of evaluators and building evaluative thinking into all types of roles - and how we might avoid this.

Authors: Nathan Towney, University of Newcastle, Matt Lumb, University of Newcastle, Monica McKenzie, University of Newcastle, Rhyall Gordon, University of Newcastle, James Ballangarry, University of Newcastle
This panel explores how evaluation in higher education can actively make space for diverse perspectives while valuing place—the cultural, relational, and institutional contexts in which programs unfold. Drawing on work within the University of Newcastle’s Engagement and Equity Division, the session examines how ethical evaluation can be enacted in practice when working across complex social justice initiatives.

We argue that dominant, compliance-oriented and metrics-driven approaches often fail to recognise place-based realities, marginalise diverse knowledges, and obscure power relations. In response, the panel foregrounds evaluation as a relational and ethically situated practice that must engage with questions of voice, inclusion, and accountability. This involves not only methodological choices, but also deliberate strategies to create space for stakeholders—particularly those historically excluded—to shape how problems, success, and evidence are defined.

Panel contributions highlight three interconnected practices. First, Indigenous-led and culturally responsive approaches demonstrate how evaluation can shift from extractive processes to reciprocal, place-based relationships grounded in trust and responsibility to community. Second, critical and post-structural perspectives support evaluators to interrogate how “problems” are constructed, making visible whose values and assumptions are prioritised. Third, collaborative design processes offer practical ways to navigate competing priorities, recognise power dynamics, and uphold ethical commitments across diverse contexts.

Through examples spanning NSW school policy evaluation, university program evaluation, and cross-sector collaborations, the panel reflects on what ethical evaluation looks like in practice—particularly how evaluators can create inclusive spaces, acknowledge limitations and failures, and contribute to more just and contextually credible evaluation approaches.

Author: Maedeh Aboutalebi, Good Sheppard
Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand is piloting an innovative ecological family and domestic violence (FDV) emergency accommodation model at Bridget House, offering safe, culturally responsive, short-term housing for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) women and children. The service replaces motel accommodation and integrates a wrap-around service hub providing therapeutic, educational, legal, and wellbeing supports, delivered on-site and via outreach. The design was informed by women with lived experience of FDV to ensure culturally safe, child-friendly, and practical spaces.

Using a developmental evaluation approach, staff reflections and interviews captured real-time insights during implementation. Seven reflective journaling sessions between July and November 2025 were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, identifying seven key themes: client journey, service model principles, wrap-around support, client outcomes, service realities, program adaptation, and recommendations. Findings illustrate how predictable routines, cultural awareness, communal support, and integrated services fostered safety, empowerment, and early positive outcomes for mothers and children.

This presentation will share practical wisdom for implementing trauma-informed, client-centred, and culturally responsive FDV emergency accommodation, highlighting lessons for real-time adaptation, program sustainability, and the development of feasible alternatives to motel-based housing for CALD families.

Authors: Lucy Walker, Nation Partners, Justine Smith, Nation Partners
Participatory evaluation is widely regarded as best practice for producing useful, ethical, and contextually grounded insights, particularly in community-based programs. Yet in practice, participatory approaches sometimes unfold in ways that are more complex, unpredictable, and sometimes unsuccessful than anticipated.

This presentation explores what happens when participatory evaluation does not go to plan, and what we can learn from these experiences. The objective of this session is to have a frank conversation about when participation doesn’t go as planned and to inspire more realistic, context-sensitive approaches to designing and implementing participatory evaluation.

The presenters (two) will draw on their experiences and examples to propose three key messages.

- Participation can’t always be assumed or expected- it is shaped by interests, relationships, perceived value and capacity with competing priorities.
- Misalignment between stakeholders (e.g. partners, community members, project funders, and evaluators) can present central challenges.
- When things don’t go according to plan it presents an opportunity for valuable insight and reflection and shouldn’t be avoided.

Through exploring cases where stakeholders are disengaged, where expectations diverge and methods don’t go to plan, we will surface the barriers and enablers to applying participatory methods in practice.

The presenters will share their experiences and insights with embedded survey via QR code to capture attendees reflections along the way. We will also explore methods and strategies to better understand stakeholder context, identify and plan for risks, and adapt approaches in the midst of delivery.

Author: Annabel Prescott (Traction for Young People), Samantha Garbutt (Traction for Young People)
Youth program evaluation faces a critical ethical question: Who is evaluation data for?

Drawing on Feedback Informed Treatment principles and youth empowerment frameworks, this presentation argues that when young people engage with their own data to understand and celebrate their growth, evaluation becomes a tool for agency rather than extraction.

Using TRACTION, a Queensland youth mentoring organisation, as a case study, we examine how internationally validated screening tools serve young people first and organisational learning second. Young people complete visual assessments at program entry, engage with their progress through facilitated conversations during the program, and review before-and-after results at completion. They keep their own copies and use their data in conversations with family, teachers, and others. This process makes visible the work young people have done, enabling them to name and claim their own progress.

The presentation explores three critical tensions:

1. How do we design evaluation that acknowledges young people as active participants in their own change process, not passive subjects of measurement?
2. What shifts when we position self-awareness and celebration as primary evaluation outcomes, with strategic metrics as secondary?
3. How do we ensure data collection practices honour young people's agency rather than extracting information purely for organisational purposes?

We present real examples of facilitated data conversations, visual assessment tools, and moments when young people recognise their own growth through evidence. When evaluation is grounded in participant empowerment, where people understand, acknowledge, and celebrate their own growth, it creates a foundation for ethical strategic data use.

This approach transfers to evaluation with any structurally marginalised population: First Nations communities, people experiencing disadvantage, or those marginalised by traditional service systems. Attendees will leave with critical questions for examining whether their own evaluation practices serve participant agency or organisational needs first

Author: Liesl Harrold, Australian Taxation Office
Problematisation is a deliberate process of dismantling a problem to understand the different ways of thinking that lead to the classification of phenomena as a problem.  It goes beyond the construction of problem statements to focus on the effort required to understand historical and theoretical assumptions underpinning its framing.  Problematisation is a way to test assumptions, generate new ideas, and make new connections to theoretical understandings. In evaluation, it has the potential to provide rigour to practices associated with judging through structuring evaluative thinking.

Using a skill building format, this paper will help participants understand the role of problems in evaluation. The format will follow an explain-model-apply in a group teaching format including practical application of selected trans-disciplinary theories and approaches. It will include a brief overview of:

•Problem logics and how they can be constructed
•Problem representation and the genealogy of problems
•Key theories that can support evaluators to think differently e.g. social identity and psychological safety theoretical frameworks.

Problematisation provides a systematic approach that offers evaluators support to think differently, rather than using existing knowledge to validate existing thoughts. Evaluators’ worldviews and skills influence their competence which may manifest in generalisations of the problem.

Problem-solving is a role in evaluation, as it supports the purpose of interventions in directing social change. They are primarily considered in the needs analysis phase of an evaluation to anchor program logics. However, this foundation has implications for intervention design, defining outcomes and establishing criteria of merit. Monitoring frameworks, particularly when using sentinel indicators, are also influenced by problem framing and assumptions.
Indigenous and transformative approaches, where the rectification of historical power imbalances is essential, would find this particularly relevant. Problematisation can prepare participants for truth-telling, a step in reconciling intergenerational trauma and stopping systemic violence (Payne & Norman, 2025).

Authors: Su-Ann Drew, Grosvenor, Jo van Twest Farmer, Rooftop Social, Eleanor Williams, ACE, Emma Williams, Martina Donkers
Ethical pressures arise due to a range of conflicting incentives that for those who commission and deliver evaluations. Evaluators may try to maintain methodological rigour while meeting tight timeframes or limited budgets. Commissioners may need defensible evidence while navigating organisational expectations, political sensitivities or shifting priorities. These pressures are real and often lead to ethical tensions for all involved, without an agreed or shared language for discussion. This session creates space for attendees to discuss challenges openly, safely and constructively, helps participants recognise and make sense of pressures shaping commissioning decisions, and builds participants’ confidence in responding in ways that support both quality and working relationships.

Building on previous AES presentations on 'everyday ethics', we give participants tools to apply in real-world commissioning contexts by introducing a simple organising framework, the Evaluation Pressure System, which helps participants identify the mix of pressures influencing a situation and why tensions arise. The framework is a guide to support reflection and conversation rather than a technical model.

Using the framework, we will explore fictional but realistic scenarios that illustrate common pressure points in commissioning and evaluation delivery. Participants will be invited, through anonymous polling, to indicate the extent to which each scenario reflects situations they have encountered. Through in-room conversations, attendees will use the framework to examine what helps maintain integrity and constructive working relationships when pressures collide. The intention is not to analyse cases in depth, but to build a clearer shared understanding of tensions that arise and how they can be handled well.

To support ongoing application, attendees will receive a Trade‑off Log to clarify constraints and integrity risks, and practical communication strategies for raising concerns early and negotiating expectations. These will help participants recognise tensions earlier, discuss them more openly and navigate them in ways that support quality and collaboration.

Culturally Grounded Evaluation: Innovative Methods from the Champions4Change Workshop
Author: Sunet Jordaan
The Champions4Change program is a First Nations–led initiative supporting people with lived experience of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) to deliver culturally safe education and advocacy in their communities. In 2025, the Heart Foundation delivered a workshop to strengthen Champions’ knowledge, confidence and leadership skills using culturally grounded and accessible evaluation methods.
This presentation shares the evaluation approach used to assess knowledge gained, confidence built and participants’ experiences. Instead of surveys, evaluators used Yarning circles, storytelling and visual self-assessment tools to create a culturally safe environment aligned with community ways of knowing, being and doing. First Nations facilitators with established relationships with Champions led the activities.
Champions used a visual “road journey” to represent changes in confidence and reflected on their understanding of ARF and RHD through yarning conversations and storytelling discussions. The session highlights how culturally grounded, visual and narrative methods can improve accessibility, participation and lived experience leadership while generating richer insights than traditional surveys.

Agile Evaluation Approaches to Combatting Antisemitism in Australia
Authors: Linda Gyorki, Milo McKay
This presentation explores agile evaluation through a real-world evaluation of place-based initiatives aimed at combating antisemitism and strengthening social cohesion. As global political developments, social polarisation and misinformation reshape communities, evaluators working in sensitive environments can no longer rely on fixed designs. This presentation demonstrates how evaluation can adapt without sacrificing rigour or credibility. Three key lessons highlight agile evaluation in practice. First, polarisation affects participation and engagement, making trust-building and relationship management essential evaluation skills. Second, iterative data collection enables evaluators to identify emerging issues, adjust methods and remain responsive to changing community dynamics. Third, responsiveness itself builds credibility. When evaluation processes visibly adapt to local events and stakeholder realities, findings become more useful and trusted by communities.
Aligning with the conference theme, “Making space, valuing place,” the presentation examines how evaluation can remain grounded in community experience while responding to broader global forces. The session will share practical lessons for evaluators navigating sensitivity, external events and methodological adaptation.

Co-design and evaluation as bridges: An adaptive approach to delivering technology for coral reef conservation
Author: Emily Maher
Delivering multilateral conservation projects requires working across disciplinary, cultural and institutional boundaries. In Southeast Asia, coral reef monitoring and management are further challenged by limited resources, capacity and coordination. This presentation shares the adaptive project management and evaluation approaches used by the Australian Institute of Marine Science to support coral reef monitoring through knowledge, technology and expertise exchange. A deliberate “year zero” planning phase aligned expectations, identified local needs and strengthened collaboration. Guided by co-design and adaptive management principles, evaluative processes structured dialogue between scientists, policymakers, managers and practitioners while integrating diverse priorities and cultural considerations. Evaluation functioned as connective infrastructure rather than simply monitoring progress. Regular reflection on partner feedback and evolving implementation needs supported timely adaptation and negotiation of trade-offs. This collaborative approach fostered strong local ownership and sustained government support, contributing to outcomes including a national coral reef monitoring plan in Brunei Darussalam and agreed monitoring standards in the Philippines and Vietnam. The presentation reflects on roadblocks, unexpected outcomes and lessons for complex projects operating across policy, technology, science and implementation.

Effects of community water fluoridation on child dental caries in remote Northern Territory, Australia
Author: Ramakrishna Chondur
Community water fluoridation (CWF) is a cost-effective intervention for reducing dental caries at a population level. This Northern Territory (NT) study used a difference-in-difference (DiD) analysis to examine dental caries outcomes among children exposed to CWF across 50 remote NT communities. Methods: Oral health data from the NT Department of Health (2008–2020) included 24,546 children aged 1–17 years. Drinking water fluoride data from the Power and Water Corporation were linked to the oral health dataset. The DiD analysis compared a treatment group with two control groups to assess the impact of CWF on dental caries outcomes using the decayed, missing and filled teeth (dmft/DMFT) index. Results: Dental caries significantly decreased among children in the treatment group following implementation of CWF, with greater reductions than both control groups over the same period.
Conclusion: CWF produced population-level reductions in dental caries among children in remote NT communities, supporting longstanding NT Department of Health policy and demonstrating improved oral health outcomes.

Enshittification: A new category for your next MEL framework?
Author: Duncan Rintoul
The term enshittification (or enpoopification for delicate ears) describes how digital services often begin as useful tools but degrade in quality and usability over time. This decline is commonly linked to increasing prioritisation of profit, resulting in cluttered interfaces, manipulated content, more advertising, rising costs and poorer user experience.
Coined by Canadian writer Cory Doctorow, the term was named “word of the year” by the American Dialect Society in 2023 and Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary in 2024. Drawing on Doctorow’s 2025 book Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It, this Ignite presentation argues that enshittification deserves a place in risk matrices and MEL frameworks across multiple sectors. The presentation also argues for the value of longitudinal process evaluation, not only longitudinal outcome evaluation, to better understand how systems and user experiences deteriorate over time.

From Admin to Evidence: Transforming Data Quality Through Culture and Capability
Author: Cath Cooper
This Ignite presentation will offer practical insights into how redefining purpose, building capability, and embedding supportive systems can transform data from a burden into a meaningful asset for evaluation.
Key points: 1.Cultural Shift: we reframed “admin tasks” as “Evidence of Impact”, shifting the narrative to honour the value of data as a foundation for learning and accountability 2.System Redesign: A collaboratively built CMS, supported by guides, workshops and induction, strengthened capability and consistency. 3.Sustained Improvement: Monthly monitoring, mentoring and rapid feedback loops led to significantly improved data accuracy and reduced correction time, enabling reliable reporting and decision making.

Authors: Eleanor Williams, ACE, Jade Maloney, ARTD, Jess Buchwald
Did you grow up wanting to be an evaluator? For most of us the answer is no, and there is value in the way we have all fallen into evaluation profession from diverse backgrounds.

But what does this mean for our career pathways and the way others think of evaluation and evaluators? What does it mean for evaluation as a profession?

As the leading voice for evaluation in Australian, the Australian Evaluation Society has long considered options for and pathways to professionalisation that strengthen our roots as a society, and develop the routes to a future in which evaluation profession is increasingly recognised and valued.

The 2024-2028 AES Strategic Plan firmly put considering pathways to professionalisation back on the agenda. A working group has since been exploring options for professionalisation, drawing on learnings from the review undertaking by Peersman and Rogers in 2017, consistent with the AES values, and informed by the experiences of other evaluation associations and other professionalisation associations in Australia.
Now it’s time to seek your views because professionalisation is for you, the Australian evaluation community.

Harnessing the success of the fishbowl approach to exploring quality evaluation that makes a difference at the 2025 conference, we are inviting everyone to jump in and share their thoughts about the value professionalisation would provide, and the risks to be managed to ensure the pathway are accessible, inclusive and respectful of diverse ways of knowing. The working group understands there are diverse views on professionalisation and invites these to be surfaced in this conversation.

The session will be facilitated by professionalisation working group co-chairs Eleanor Williams, Jade Maloney and Jess Buchwald with opportunities to contribute live or through written formats. The working group will use what you share in shaping the route forward.

And yes, there will again be chocolate fish rewards for contributors.

Just think: What would it look like if the next generation could grow up wanting to be an evaluator? What if when you became an evaluator you could see a clear pathway forward?

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.

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.

Author: Matthew Armstrong, CGIAR
This presentation provides practical insights on how and when to use economics in evaluation. Economic ideas shape public policy, funding, and program design. Economics promises efficiency, cost effectiveness, value for money and optimisation. Many evaluation theories, for example Stufflebeam’s CIPP model (2007), Scriven’s (2007) consumer orientated model, and Patton’s (2003) utilisation-focused model are biased towards the social concerns of evaluation.

Yet, evaluators are often tasked with incorporating economic concepts, methods and language into evaluations. But how do we make them fit-for-purpose, credible and culturally appropriate? This case study examines when and how economic concepts should be integrated into evaluation.

CGIAR, a global agricultural research network, is introducing tools to apply comparative advantage in portfolio design and evaluation. Comparative advantage suggests organisations should specialise in areas where they are relatively strongest and partner elsewhere to maximise impact. The theory is compelling: comparative advantage offers reduced duplication and deliberate partnerships at lower costs.

However, how do we credibly measure and make evaluative judgements about comparative advantage? This study found considerable variation in how comparative advantage was applied across the organisation and consternation in response to the roll-out that hindered its usefulness. This presentation describes an interdisciplinary negotiation undertaken to develop guidance for rigorous process and performance evaluations of comparative advantage within CGIAR. It involves a structured process to identify synergies and tensions between existing evaluation and economic practice relating to comparative advantage, a step-by-step approach to undertaking evaluations with comparative advantage criteria, and recommendations for developing an organisation-wide approach to comparative advantage to support consistent, high-quality. Furthermore, this case study illustrates a crucial requirement to reflect upon how economics is integrated into evaluation, including when it should be adapted or challenged.

In the interactive component, participants will reflect on how economics shapes evaluation in their organisations.

Authors Fergus Bailey, ARTD, Jade Maloney, ARTD
Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031 emphasises the importance of inclusive practices across all sectors, including evaluation. We all have a role to play in achieving the vision of an inclusive Australian society that ensures people with disability can fulfil their potential, as equal members of the community.

At the 2025 AES conference, Melinda Nicholls, Amanda Charles, and Jane Spring AM introduced a practical guide to facilitate meaningful inclusion of people with disability in evaluation, embedding lived experience and promoting equitable participation.

ARTD Consultants is conducting the mid-term evaluation of Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031, using the guide and their own lived experience evaluation framework for a lived experience centred approach. This a significant test of the guide in action.

In this panel, DHDA staff, Jade Maloney (CEO, ARTD Consultants), Fergus Bailey (Senior Consultant, ARTD Consultants), and lived experience representatives will discuss how the perspectives of people with lived experience were centred throughout the evaluation - in key evaluation team roles (including ARTD staff and a lived experience team), governance roles (e.g. Steering Committee), and consultation with people with disability across Australia.

They will provide perspectives as commissioners, evaluators, and people with lived experience on how the guide was operationalised for this process and the benefits to the evaluation.

They will share practical advice for how evaluators can effectively engage people with disability in leading and contributing to evaluations, which are applicable to engaging people with lived experience more broadly in evaluation governance, design and delivery roles, including tailored approaches for diverse communities.

After a presentation and discussion, Jade Maloney will facilitate questions as an experienced AES presenter and moderator, prompting around barriers, enablers, risk management, how challenges accommodated, and other considerations for this approach. Following the session the team will share learnings for the future with broader AES members.

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!

Authors: Paula Shaw, ARTD, Syl Johns, ARTD
This session, targeted at intermediate evaluators, explores the ethics of evaluation in the corrections context and the importance of including prisoners’ voices.

Incarcerated people are (almost by definition) excluded from public discourse. Our criminal justice system offers imprisonment; a deprivation of liberty, which includes severe restrictions on a person’s ability to communicate with the outside world, as its most common consequence for committing a crime.

Since the mid-20th century, when prisons were re-imagined as places of rehabilitation over places of punishment, criminogenic programs that aim to address the underlying causes of crime have been part of prisons’ remit. Prisoners themselves are arguably the key stakeholders in these kinds of programs, and yet, their voices are often absent in evaluation and other research and program development activities.

Prisons, as a context for program delivery and evaluation, are highly regulated and complex environments. Across Australia, prisons are chronically overcrowded and hold populations with very high levels of complex needs, disadvantage and trauma. First Nations Australians are also overrepresented.

Over the last five years, the presenters, (ARTD Associate Uncle Syl Johns, and Senior Manager, Paula Shaw) have worked on several evaluations of criminogenic programs, and between them, have interviewed well over 100 prisoners across Qld, and in SA, NSW, Victoria, WA and the NT. This session will be delivered as brief presentations and facilitated group discussions on each of the topics below:

•The ethics of inclusion of prisoners in evaluation projects – why it matters, what are the power dynamics at play, what are the risks for prisoners, and what do they get out of it?
•The formal ethics processes involved – what are the key considerations?
•Learnings from our work about practical approaches to engaging prisoners in evaluation interviews. – What has worked well? What hasn’t – and why?

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.

Author: Annabel Prescott, Traction For Young People
Youth program evaluation faces a critical ethical question: Who is evaluation data for?

Drawing on Feedback Informed Treatment principles and youth empowerment frameworks, this presentation argues that when young people engage with their own data to understand and celebrate their growth, evaluation becomes a tool for agency rather than extraction.

Using TRACTION, a Queensland youth mentoring organisation, as a case study, we examine how internationally validated screening tools serve young people first and organisational learning second. Young people complete visual assessments at program entry, engage with their progress through facilitated conversations during the program, and review before-and-after results at completion. They keep their own copies and use their data in conversations with family, teachers, and others. This process makes visible the work young people have done, enabling them to name and claim their own progress.

The presentation explores three critical tensions:

1. How do we design evaluation that acknowledges young people as active participants in their own change process, not passive subjects of measurement?
2. What shifts when we position self-awareness and celebration as primary evaluation outcomes, with strategic metrics as secondary?
3. How do we ensure data collection practices honour young people's agency rather than extracting information purely for organisational purposes?

We present real examples of facilitated data conversations, visual assessment tools, and moments when young people recognise their own growth through evidence. When evaluation is grounded in participant empowerment, where people understand, acknowledge, and celebrate their own growth, it creates a foundation for ethical strategic data use.

This approach transfers to evaluation with any structurally marginalised population: First Nations communities, people experiencing disadvantage, or those marginalised by traditional service systems. Attendees will leave with critical questions for examining whether their own evaluation practices serve participant agency or organisational needs first.

Authors: Natasha Freeman, Menzies School of Health Research, Edwina Murphy, Menzies School of Health Research
This presentation explores the importance of respecting context and culture when working with First Nations participants and colleagues, rethinking conventional data collection methods and outcome indicators to elicit important learnings.

We will share the experiences of our culturally and professionally diverse team delivering and evaluating Doing It Together, a peer-support and peer-education program for First Nations youth living with type 2 diabetes. The project required a thoughtful and responsive approach to ensure that local First Nations voices were prioritised and processes culturally grounded.

Strengthening capacity across the team through genuine two-way learning was central, recognising that concepts such as “research” and “evaluation” required ongoing discussion to collectively explore their meaning and purpose. This was particularly relevant for team members new to professional roles and, sometimes, in first time employment. Creating this space enabled all team members, particularly youth peer facilitators, to feel comfortable with the project’s intent and direction. It prompted important shifts in data collection and defining impact, more meaningfully reflecting First Nations ways of knowing, being and valuing.

Strategies included supported reflection, discussion and two-way learning, building on established relationships, and adopting a Developmental Evaluation approach to support intentional reflection on processes and outcomes, enabling timely adaptation. We were open to what constitutes meaningful data and valued context-specific insights.

We practised data collection as a skill throughout—learning to elicit and honour stories and lived experience, administer surveys with purpose, and reflect critically on what “impact” and “success” could look like. Data analysis was similarly approached with care, prioritising First Nations youth voices, particularly where differing world views shaped interpretation.

The presentation will be co-facilitated by the Evaluation Officer and an Aboriginal Peer Facilitator. Modelling the project’s relational approach, we will showcase activities used for connecting project participants, inviting audience movement and interaction. We welcome questions throughout.

Author: Themis Antony, Beyond Blue
This session will provide an overview of a practical approach utilised by Beyond Blue to develop an engaging, streamlined and systematic approach to capturing evaluation-ready outcomes data.

Objective and key messages:
The objective of the session is to share how traditional and adapted approaches were used to develop a core outcomes dataset that heavily engaged staff in the process, while factoring in the inherent challenges of defining, collecting and using outcomes data within the multi-faceted operating environment in which Beyond Blue works.

The key element of the approach was its deliberate focus on making space for, and meaningfully engaging, staff across the organisation to shape the outcomes development process. Rather than being imposed, the approach was co-developed with staff and embedded in day-to-day practice. This resulted in a network of interrelated program logic models that are owned by individual program areas.
The data generated through this approach is also owned by program areas and used to inform evaluations and is actively owned by staff at all levels. Insights are shared widely, including with community members, government and corporate funders, donors and sector colleagues, supporting transparency, accountability and collective learning.

The session will include a practical demonstration of the logic models in action, showing how they are used to guide decision making, monitor progress and support evaluation.

Overall, the session aims to share a practical approach to outcomes measurement, provide an example of how to bridge the evaluation gap for staff who may be less familiar with data collection, and demonstrate how strong evaluation and research integrity can be maintained while building organisational evaluation capacity.

Interactivity:
Time will be set aside for interactive discussion and debate, enabling participants to reflect on how similar approaches could be adapted to their own organisational contexts and how the approach could be enhanced.

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