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/

11:30am ACST

What makes place-based evaluation different?

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

Waterfront 3

Authors: Lorraine Heywood, Treasury, Suzanne Butler, Treasury, Jessica Smart, AIFS

This panel discussion and Q&A will provide a lively and thought-provoking discussion about the differences between traditional program evaluation and place-based evaluation, with panel members sharing their experience and examples from different organisational perspectives across the field.

Evaluation in a place-based context must be fit-for-purpose – this requires deep consideration of the relational aspects that underpin place-based work, knowledge and understanding about the places and communities involved, and different leadership and governance structures to support decision-making.

This panel discussion will focus on exploring place-based evaluation from multiple perspectives, including hearing views from:
•   whole-of-government
•   commissioned evaluator
•   community representatives leading place-based work in Australia.

The three presenters will discuss the unique opportunities and challenges involved in evaluating place-based work, drawing on the experience of monitoring, evaluation and learning processes in different place-based projects.

Key points will include:
•   Different purposes for evaluation: balancing the need for learning with the need to demonstrate impact and discussing how the focus of evaluation can change over the life cycle of a place-based initiative.
•   Skills and understanding needed for place-based work and the implications for government, community and organisations leading place-based evaluations: the importance of self-awareness, place awareness and cultural awareness to effectively partner in place-based evaluation. The multi-dimensional role of government and continued efforts to build evaluation skills, capabilities and leading practice across the Australian Public Service will also be covered.
•   Key factors that make place-based evaluation different: including the diversity of place-based work, the need for iterative and emergent evaluation processes, variation across communities and places, and challenges understanding effectiveness and impact.

Three presenters will have up to 10 minutes each to convey critical ideas and reflections from their perspective. Twenty minutes will be available for audience participation, questions and answers.

Speakers

Jessica Smart

Research Fellow, AIFS

Suzanne Butler

Director, Place-based Evaluation and Wellbeing Unit, Department of Treasury

Suzanne currently leads a team in the Australian Centre for Evaluation (ACE) responsible for embedding good evaluation principles and practices across government and fostering an evaluative culture that supports continuous learning about what works, why, and for whom. This includes... Read More →

Lorraine Heywood

Assistant Director, Department of Treasury

Wednesday September 16, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Traditional and new ways

Format Panel
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Community and social services

4:30pm ACST

Professional isolation in evaluation: AES members’ experiences, and ways to strengthen peer connection and community

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm ACST

Hall 2

Authors: Martina Donkers, Julie Elliott

Professional isolation is an experience that, ironically, many evaluators share. As evaluators, we often find ourselves in a team of one – the only evaluator in the room, the only evaluator at the organisation, one bringing an evaluative lens to the problem. This can be hard. It can feel like people are turning to us for more answers than we have, or expecting something unrealistic. Sometimes we find ourselves feeling isolated due to our culture, our methodological approach or our disciplinary background.
There are structural ways isolation shows up – evaluators who work remotely in regional areas, evaluators who are self-employed, evaluators who balance their role with kids and family responsibilities. These experiences can leave us feeling like an outsider, with no one to test ideas, no one to help when the going gets rough, and no one to help grow our capabilities.
This panel session will explore AES members’ experiences of professional isolation, and what has worked (and not worked!) to help them combat it. We’ll present anonymised experiences from AES members about professional isolation to show attendees they aren’t alone.
We’ll then hear from 3 panellists at different stages of their professional journey, and what they’ve done to address professional isolation they’ve felt as evaluators. Finally, we’ll open the floor to questions – how can we feel more connected in our work? – and explore a range of ways that we can combat professional isolation in our field. This panel is presented by the AES Peer Group Mentoring Program Working Group, and considers how the program helps strengthen connection to peers. It also extends thinking beyond AES initiatives, and considers other ways that evaluators can combat professional isolation in a disconnected world. If you’ve ever felt lonely as an evaluator, this session is for you.

Speakers

Martina Donkers

David Roberts

Principal Consultant, RobertsBrown

David Roberts is a Fellow of the AES has a M.Eval.Ass and BA(Hons). He is semi-retired as a self-employed consultant. He has wide experience over 40 years in evaluations using both qualitative and quantitative methods. David has training and experience in Anthropology, Evaluation... Read More →

Jill Thomas

Senior Consultant, Jill Thomas Evaluation

Jill Thomas (MEval, MBusSys) is the Director of Jill Thomas Evaluation, a collaborative consultancy dedicated to advancing social good through the development of effective evaluation systems, projects, and products. With extensive experience as a consultant evaluator and analyst... Read More →

Paula White

Equity / Impact Measurement, Independent Evaluator

Bethany Hanson

Manager Review and Evaluation, TAFE NSW

Beth combines her extensive NSW Government and consultancy experience on evaluation projects spanning environment, sustainability, education and First Nations programs. Beth has led the design of several large portfolio evaluation frameworks at state and federal level. She's now applying... Read More →

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm ACST
Hall 2

Special

Format Panel
Audience Level Intermediate
Industry Public administration and safety, Community and social services, Education and training, Not for profit Philanthropy, Health and disability
ID 311

4:30pm ACST

Two-way learning through evaluation: An innovative Indigenous-led initiative enacting developmental evaluation at the cultural interface

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm ACST

Waterfront 3

Authors: Samantha Togni, S2 Consulting, Robyn Napurrurla Lawson, Central Land Council, Verona Nungarrayi Jurrah, Central Land Council, David Japanangka McCormack, Central Land Council, Belinda Napaljarri Wayne, Central Land Council
For decades Indigenous peoples have led, and advocated for, evaluation that centres Indigenous ways of knowing and being and that promotes cultural safety to better support the realisation of Indigenous peoples’ aspirations through decolonising evaluation.

As a relationship-based participatory approach that is suited to supporting social innovation in complex, dynamic contexts, developmental evaluation is emerging as a useful approach in these settings. The focus on relationships underscores recognition that it is in relationship that change and development happen.

Over seven years developmental evaluation has supported the facilitation of two-way learning between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to develop an innovative Indigenous-led initiative to strengthen the governance of two Indigenous corporations in remote Australia. Operating at the interface of different knowledge systems, laws and values, this co-design process involved Indigenous directors, land council staff and corporate governance trainers.

Guided by the principles of culturally responsive evaluation in Indigenous contexts, developmental evaluation enabled the prioritisation of relationships, and the centring of Indigenous voices, knowledge and culture to effectively enact two-way learning within this complex intercultural context. In conversation with the evaluator, Indigenous directors will share how they engaged in and influenced the developmental evaluation to enact two-way learning and how it became integral to the initiative’s co-design and delivery.

Featuring long-term and newly elected directors, panellists will explore their experiences of how, through the centring of their values and knowledge, the evaluation learnings:

1) transformed the program to align with Indigenous ways of learning;
2) contributed to the initiative’s effectiveness and accelerated newly elected directors’ learning; and
3) strengthened relationships and cultural safety that underpinned two-way learning.

Panellists will provide valuable lessons from culturally responsive developmental evaluation in practice, demonstrating factors that contributed to this approach effectively centring Indigenous people’s values and perspectives to strengthen relationships and decolonize evaluation to support Indigenous aspirations.

Speakers

Samantha Togni

Evaluation Consultant, S2 Consulting

Samantha Togni is an evaluation and social research consultant based in Alice Springs. She has more than 20 years’ experience in Indigenous health and wellbeing research and evaluation, working with rural and remote Aboriginal organisations in northern and central Australia. Her... Read More →

Robyn Napurrurla Lawson

Director, Central Land Council

Belinda Napaljarri Wayne

Central Land Council

David Japanangka McCormack

Central Land Council

Wednesday September 16, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Traditional and new ways

Format Panel
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Community and social services
ID 247

10:30am ACST

aes26 Fellows Forum Philanthropy and Evaluation – What Gives?

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

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Author: Rick Cummings, Program Evaluation Services, Alan Woodward, Alan Woodward Consulting, Jen Lorains, Childrens Ground, Adriaan Wolvaardt, Minderoo, Catherine Wade, Parenting Research Centre

It is estimated that over $2.4 billion is given annually in philanthropic and charitable causes in Australian. This is a very significant amount of funding and yet there is little to no research on how these funds and programs are evaluated. The AES Fellows are conducting an interactive session to look both at the role of evaluation in philanthropy and the role of philanthropy in evaluation.
The aim is to identify issues in this field, to generate discussion between attendees and philanthropic organisations, and to build some bridges between evaluators and philanthropists for future research and evaluation activities. We have representatives from three of the key stakeholder groups in this area – philanthropic organisations, agencies relying on philanthropic funding, and evaluators who have worked in this area - to give short presentations on their experiences working in this area and issues which they face.
These presenters will form a panel, with a Fellow as moderator. Based on these talks, audience groups will be formed and facilitated by a panel member or a Fellow to discuss issues and experiences. From these discussions, the panel will then respond to these audience generated issues/questions.

Speakers

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 →

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 →

Jen Lorains

Director Research & Evaluation, Childrens Ground

Jen Lorains is the Director of Research & Evaluation at Children’s Ground. She works with each community to evaluate and evidence the impact of Children’s Ground’s empowerment, systems reform and integrated service platform.Jen has undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications... Read More →

Alan Woodward

Principal, Alan Woodward Consulting

My evaluation experience is broad, ranging from the conduct of evaluations of programs and services, the commissioning of evaluations, the engagement of communities on evaluation activities, the design of evaluation strategies and capacity building within organisations. I work in... Read More →

Adriaan Wolvaardt

Minderoo

Jess Dart

CEO, Clear Horizon

Dr Jess Dart is the founder and CEO of Clear Horizon, an Australian-based specialist evaluation company. Having received the 2018 Outstanding Contribution to Evaluation Award from the Australian Evaluation Society (AES), Jess is a recognised leader with over 25 years of experience... 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 →

Thursday September 17, 2026 10:30am - 11:30am ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Special

Format Panel
Audience Level Intermediate, Foundational
Industry Not for profit Philanthropy
ID 1010

2:00pm ACST

An open discussion on research and evaluation that works for remote communities

Thursday September 17, 2026 2:00pm - 3:00pm ACST

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Authors: Jillian Marsh, Charles Sturt University, School Of Indigenous Australian Studies, Kate Dixon, Schools Plus, Laura Bird, Paul Ramsay Foundation
This panel features panellists representing all layers of the evaluation ecosystem, and focuses on an evaluation conducted in remote schools in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland. This panel discussion will centre on the question: How can we, as an evaluation ecosystem, make space and value place in the design and implementation of programs, projects, and evaluations?

Our panel includes a representative from the evaluation funders, the program facilitator and a community-based representative. The panel will be facilitated by a member of our evaluation and research team who is leading the project. The discussion will reflect on and unpack some of the realities of negotiating a place-based evaluation in remote communities, and how these reflections effect planning, design and delivery of evaluations. Our funders will explain their priorities, what they are aiming to achieve and why they are funding the evaluation, as well as explaining why a place-based approach is important to them.

The program facilitator will discuss how this evaluation project complements other existing projects, as well as how it was designed and why it was designed in that way. Our community-based representative will talk about their role in the project and the value that they bring through their community-based expertise, experience and relationships. This panel offers a unique look at how space is created for collaborative evaluation design and implementation, and how place can be centred throughout all stages of evaluation, even in a national project.

Speakers

Jillian Marsh

Professor, Indigenous Knowledges, Charles Sturt University, School Of Indigenous Australian Studies

Laura Bird

Paul Ramsay Foundation

Kate Dixon

Thursday September 17, 2026 2:00pm - 3:00pm ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Ethics and integrity

Format Panel
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Not for profit Philanthropy, Education and training
ID 312

4:00pm ACST

Looking upstream and downstream: longitudinal case studies of climate and water resilience

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

Waterfront 3

Authors: Stuart Raetz, Climate Resilient Communities, Primatia Romana Wulandari, Alinea International, Keren Winterford, University of Technology Sydney
This panel will explore and contrast Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) insights from two Australian international development investments undertaking evaluative longitudinal case studies that aim to monitor changes in community and institutional resilience over an extended period: The Australian Water Partnership (AWP) and Climate Resilient Communities (CRC). AWP are retrospectively studying 10 years of water governance investments (2015–2025), while CRC are undertaking evaluative case studies in early stages of investments, exploring how communities are adapting to climate change in five countries (Cambodia, Fiji, Kiribati, Timor Leste and Tonga) in the Indo Pacific (2026 – 2029).
Drawing on emerging insights of evaluative practice, evidence and learnings the session will explore the enabling conditions that support community and institutional resilience in a changing climate. The panel will discuss:
1.Different vantage points reveal different resilience dynamics. AWP’s retrospective longitudinal analysis uncovers patterns of institutional strengthening, governance adaptation, and enabling conditions that only emerge over time, while CRC’s evaluative case studies will illuminate how climate resilience is context specific and driven by locally led adaptation practices.
2.Complementary methodologies strengthen evaluative insight. Both programs use participatory, outcome oriented, and complexity sensitive approaches—providing methodological alignment while generating distinct, mutually reinforcing evidence streams.
3.Integrated evidence supports better climate informed programming. When institutional governance evidence is paired with forward looking community insights, development programs gain stronger foundations for policy engagement, climate integration, and long-term investment planning.
The panel will provide examples from programming to contrast retrospective and forward-looking approaches to longitudinal case studies.
Audience interaction will be promoted through short provocations and facilitated reflection to elicit insights from the audience. The panel will support a practical understanding of the challenges and opportunities in defining resilience and stimulate discussion on how MEL can help programs to contribute to resilience outcomes, navigating complexity in a changing climate.

Speakers

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 →

Primatia Romana Wulandari

Senior Consultant, Alinea International

Keren Winterford

Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

Dr Winterford has more than 20 years work experience working in the international development sector, in multiple capacities with Managing Contractors, NGOs, as a private consultant, and more recently in development research. She currently provides research and consultancy services... Read More →

Thursday September 17, 2026 4:00pm - 5:00pm ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Roots and routes

Format Panel
Audience Level Intermediate
Industry Environment and climate change, International development, Natural resources and energy
ID 210

10:30am ACST

Making space, valuing place: in and through higher education evaluation

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

Waterfront 3

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.

Speakers

Nathan Towney

Deputy Vice Chancellor Engagement and Equity, University of Newcastle

Nathan is a Wiradjuri man from Wellington NSW and currently the interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor Engagement and Equity at the University of Newcastle. Prior to joining the University Nathan worked in a variety of roles for the NSW Department of Education, finishing as Principal at Newcastle... Read More →

Matt Lumb

Associate Director, Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education

Matt's interest in evaluation developed through experiences as both a community development professional and classroom teacher. With colleagues at the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education, he works to foreground the politics of value and knowledge at play in processes... Read More →

Monica McKenzie

Indigenous Evaluation Advisor, University of Newcastle

Friday September 18, 2026 10:30am - 11:30am ACST
Waterfront 3 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Traditional and new ways

Format Panel
Audience Level Foundational, Intermediate
Industry Education and training, Community and social services
ID 296

11:30am ACST

4:30pm ACST

4:30pm ACST

10:30am ACST

2:00pm ACST

4:00pm ACST

10:30am ACST

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