aes26 International Evaluation Conference

Who really benefits from a program and how? Using personae to enrich logic models.
Author: Fiona Scott-Melton, Allen + Clarke
Not everyone experiences a program the same way. Yet logic models tend to obscure differences between population groups experiences, needs and aspirations. Incorporating personae helps address this limitation. By representing distinct population groups within a logic model, personae make visible the different routes through which people experience a program and what they gain from it. Drawing on a real life logic model developed for housing disabled people, the session will show how incorporating personae strengthens evaluation design, enriches social return on investment calculations and produces more compelling findings for stakeholders.

Help! The post-it notes have fallen off our logic model and been mixed up!
Author: Robert Grimshaw, ATO
Can you help us piece the logic model back together? This online interactive group activity is one tool used by a large public sector agency to familiarise people with key logic modelling concepts and thinking. This session will provide a practical demonstration of the activity and how it’s being used by workshop participants to apply their learning in a simple and fun way. Participant feedback has confirmed the value of this tool for engaging with and building the capability of a diverse audience who have limited evaluation capability and experience.

Method vs methodology – what’s the difference, and why it matters 
Author: Martina Donkers, Martina Donkers
We’ve got to stop using the words ‘method’ and ‘methodology’ interchangeably. ‘Methodology’ isn’t a slightly-fancier way of saying ‘method’ – it’s actually what conceptually underpins your method choices, and it’s an important thing to reckon with if you want to do evaluation that speaks to your stakeholders, is culturally responsive, is ethical and proportionate, and is ultimately useful. This quick-fire Ignite session will be a rapid deep-dive into practical ways to think about methodology in evaluation, apply it to traditional practice and emerging approaches, and leverage that thinking to do better evaluative work.

Exploring arts-based methods for project evaluation
Authors: Katie Ronson, Creative Australia, Kirstin Clements, Partner Impact & Evaluation
In this presentation evaluation practitioners from Creative Australia and Arts Centre Melbourne share how arts-based evaluation methods can unlock insights about participant experience in contexts where traditional methods struggle.

Evaluating ConnectUp: preferences for a social connectivity app among people with disability and carers
Authors: Feby Savira, Deakin University, Dom Kwasnicka, Deakin University, Lucio Naccarella, Deakin University

A national DCE (n=1,031) was conducted with people with disability, carers, and individuals identifying as both. Participants completed choice tasks comparing hypothetical versions of ConnectUp that varied across cost, communication modes, group structures, anonymity, support features, and information sources. Preferences were analysed using a conditional logit model, with latent class analysis used to identify user segments. Attitudinal questions explored additional features not captured within the DCE.

Three key findings emerge. First, participants were cost sensitive, preferring low- or no-cost options. Second, privacy and control were critical: users preferred small, private group settings and avoided features that compromised anonymity. Third, preferences were heterogeneous. Three segments were identified, including a highly price-sensitive group, a majority group prioritising anonymity and community-generated content, and a smaller segment (18%) more tolerant of cost but still favouring private group structures.

Attitudinal findings highlight additional design considerations. Flexible access features such as membership suspension (73%) and free trial options (77%) were widely valued. Around half of participants prioritised staff training in inclusivity (50%) and access in a preferred language (51%), while over half (54%) preferred human support over automated options.

This presentation demonstrates how combining DCE and attitudinal data can strengthen evaluation of digital services by capturing trade-offs and broader user expectations, and how segmentation can inform more inclusive design decisions. Participants will engage in scenario-based discussion to translate findings into practice.

Thou shall not: The 10 Commandments for Surveys 
Author: Louise Parker, Alinea International
The 10 Commandments for Surveys:
1) Thou shall not ask too many questions - survey fatigue is real and so is wasting people's time. Figure out what you absolutely must know from respondents and craft your questions around that.
2) Thou shall not ask double-barreled questions e.g. 'Did you find the workshop fun and informative?'
3) Thou shall not change the appearance order of repeating yes/no or Likert scale responses - if 'strongly agree' appears on the far right the first time, keep it that way throughout the whole survey.
...plus 7 more fabulous tips!

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

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

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

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

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

Why you should leave evaluation (and come back!)
Author: Delyth Lloyd, Australian Centre for Evaluation
After 15 years as an AES member, I stepped away from evaluation for a one-year hiatus. What began as a brief stint in an implementation role quickly transitioned into a fast and furious year using every evaluation skill I had to offer. I negotiated in hard spaces, navigated power dynamics, held space for diversity and ethical complexities. Busy people asked for more rubrics and used them in practice! This presentation distils insights from my transition out of, and back into, the sector. It reflects on the evaluation competencies we hold, and highlights how deeply they are valued by others.

The Evaluation Pub Test: Simple Questions for Public Value 
Author: Amanda Taylor-Short, ARTD
Publicly funded evaluations carry an implicit responsibility to contribute to public good. In practice, evaluations are often viewed as mechanisms for accountability in government decision‑making. This can reinforce a focus on compliance, program‑specific detail, and predefined questions, limiting broader reflection about the contribution of a program and leaving simple but important questions unexplored. This creates a missed opportunity to connect evaluation work with the people and decisions it exists to inform. This presentation explores the Evaluation Pub Test: examining evaluator responsibility to support public value, the benefits of answering simple questions, and considerations for deciding which questions are worth answering.

From scientist to evaluator: Lessons beyond numbers 
Author: Heather Bryan, First Person Consulting
This Ignite traces one evaluator’s unlikely journey from a postgraduate ecologist in Latin America to an honours student modelling climate impacts, and later a data analyst at the Australian Bureau of Statistics - before arriving at the unexpected doorstep of evaluation. Along the way came a new appreciation for the value of qualitative evidence. This talk shares three lessons motivated by moving beyond numbers: outliers are insights rather than errors, stories explain what numbers can’t, and subjectivity, when acknowledged rather than ignored, can strengthen evaluation. Together, these lessons invite a broader view of evidence, where individual stories bring meaning.

Bridging Sectors Through Evaluation: Lessons from a University–Community, Community of Practice
Author: Hannah Morgan, UTS
In 2025, the University of Technology Sydney partnered with Inner Sydney Voice (ISV) to co-design an Evaluation Community of Practice, connecting university evaluators and community practitioners. We reflect on lessons learned from the collaboration, including the value of shared ownership and relational trust in cross-sector work. Community practitioners strengthened their confidence and capability, while UTS deepened its understanding of how to adapt evaluation capacity building to meet the needs of the community sector context. The experience illustrated the mutual benefits of collaboration and the potential of Communities of Practice to advance evaluation through reciprocal learning.

Seeing through their eyes: Photo-Elicitation in Evaluation
Author: Estelle Gaillard, CSIRO
Images can ignite conversation, evoke emotions, elicit reflection and spark new ways of thinking. Photo-elicitation uses photographs in interviews to prompt participants to share insights into their lived experiences that might not surface through standard questions. This Ignite presentation will introduce the method, show practical examples of its use in evaluation and outline the photo-elicitation process. Attendees will leave reflecting on whether — and how — photo-elicitation could fit into their own evaluation toolkit.

Making Space for Boba and Beats: Valuing Grassroots Reality with an Evaluation MVP
Author: Anabelle (pin-chu) Chen, Taiwan Pride
For a volunteer-run grassroots NFP, traditional evaluation often occupies the very space intended for community action. When resources are scarce, every hour spent on data collection undermines the operational realities of the place where we operate. As the President and Evaluator of Taiwan Pride Sydney, I faced this tension at the 2026 Sydney Mardi Gras. How do you measure the cultural impact of a 'Lanterns of Ecstatica, Taiwan Lighting up Asia' float when the generator dies, the music cuts out, and you are forced to march giant illuminated bubble tea cups in total silence?
This Ignite presentation proposes a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for evaluation. By shifting the focus to macro-validation and systemic consequences, I will demonstrate how grassroots organisations can engineer a structurally sound evidentiary argument that survives real-world disaster. Using aggressive dimensionality reduction and cognitive anchoring, we can design evaluation MVPs that extract maximum validated learning with minimum administrative friction. Let's spill the tea on how to make space for rigorous evaluation when absolutely nothing goes to plan.

Authors: Samantha Abbato
Learning objective: Participants will be able to identify and practise managing the eight major enemies of evaluative thinking in evaluation contexts.

Why this skill matters: Even experienced evaluators fall prey to thinking traps. Individual biases (including emotional reasoning, fast thinking, confirmation bias and overconfidence) undermine rigour. Group biases such as in-group favouritism and cascading effects distort collective judgement. Noise, both between evaluators and within a single evaluator at different times, creates inconsistency in decisions and recommendations. Together, these eight enemies threaten the quality of evaluations at every stage: from scoping and data synthesis to communicating findings.

This session equips participants with practical strategies to recognise and manage these threats for clearer, more defensible evaluative thinking.

How the skill will be taught: Using the Thinking-Bee Obstacles board game, participants work in small groups through evaluation-based scenarios that activate each of the eight thinking enemies. The game provides ego-safe, attention-directing play. Participants think through bee personas rather than as themselves, making it easier to surface and examine real thinking traps. A brief facilitator-led debrief anchors the game experience to participants’ own evaluation practice.

How participants will engage: Participants will play the Thinking-Bee Obstacles game in small groups of four to six, applying the eight enemies of thinking to realistic evaluation decisions.

The session closes with a structured reflection linking game insights to participants’ own work contexts.

Author: Matt Healey (First Person Consulting)

Scaling is often treated as a straightforward ambition: test an intervention in one place, then replicate it in others. In complex systems, and particularly in place-based settings where challenges are systemically entrenched in local history, relationships and power, this logic breaks down. What works is frequently inseparable from where and with whom it works. Scaling across places is not replication. It is a fundamentally different process, and evaluators need tools adequate to that complexity.
This workshop equips evaluators, program designers and commissioners to challenge lock-step and linear models of scaling and apply a complexity-informed, place-sensitive approach in their own practice. Despite the proliferation of place-based initiatives across Australia and the Asia Pacific, most evaluators lack a coherent framework for assessing scalability or monitoring fidelity in contextually sensitive ways.
Three connected arguments run through the session. First, scalability is a question before it is a plan: interventions need to be tested for readiness and direction before any scaling begins. Second, scaling in complex systems requires holding the tension between fidelity and adaptation, not resolving it prematurely. Third, scaling across places demands attention to what is systemically entrenched in each context: the relationships, trust and power dynamics that cannot be lifted and shifted.
These arguments are anchored in three practical tools: a reworked scalability assessment; the Scaling in Place Framework, a new conceptual tool mapping fidelity, adaptation, mechanism and context; and the Scaling Canvas and Fidelity Checker for planning and monitoring.
The session is structured around a short conceptual input, a worked case example, and a facilitated small group activity in which participants apply the tools to a program or context from their own practice. Structured reflection closes the session. It is targeted at intermediate-level evaluators, program designers and commissioners working in place-based, health, community or government settings.

Author: Adrian Field, Dovetail Consulting
Value for Investment (VfI) is an emerging evaluation system that is gaining increasing traction internationally. The system is intentionally mixed methods, interdisciplinary and collaborative.
It is this collaborative positioning of VfI that this presentation is focused. In VfI framing, value draws from multiple perspectives of what makes a programme, intervention or policy valuable. Therefore, understanding and capturing value requires a fundamentally collaborative mindset, one that reaches beyond existing data sources and reporting, to explore from many different perspectives what it is that fundamentally matters about the intervention that is the evaluation’s focus.

This presentation draws on learning and approaches in exploring value through participatory design techniques. It will draw on approaches developed and refined across a range of VfI evaluations, in the health, mental health, justice, urban development, transport and creative sectors.
The session will describe a range of facilitative techniques adopted to draw on different stakeholders perspectives on value, and the strengths that they offer for building robust, relevant and actionable evaluations.

Using a VfI lens allied with participatory design techniques, the presentation will explore how value can be brought to life across key evaluation questions, theories of change and value propositions, evaluative rubrics, and collaborative sense-making.

Session participants will gain a clear sense of the possibilities and potential for applying participatory approaches in VfI, and the strengths these offer for evaluation practice.

Authors: Nea Harrison, Pandanus Evaluation, Maria do Céu Lopes da Silva

Cultural identity as a shield: Measuring the social value of Culture and Kinship
Authors: Louise Green, Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, Lily Edwards
This presentation shares learnings from research by VACCHO and Victorian Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), exploring how strengthening Identity and Cultural connectedness and practice, drives positive long-term health and wellbeing outcomes.

Building on a 2022 evaluation of the Culture and Kinship Model, the research is driven and sustained by Aboriginal leadership and Cultural governance and uses a SROI methodology to understand drivers of change and inform future recommendations.

Supported by Kowa Collaboration, Aboriginal-led evaluation consultancy, the approach is grounded in culturally responsive stakeholder engagement — including Impact and Value Yarning — to enable participatory interpretation and translation of knowledge and evidence.

Presence builds trust: How place-based engagement transformed participation in NSW First Nations Digital Inclusion evaluation
Authors: Megan Brewer, Nous Group, Rodney Williams, Nous Group, Taliah King, Nous Group
Evaluating programs with First Nations communities requires time, presence, and trust. An evaluation of First Nations Digital Inclusion meant learning and adapting, shifting to a snowballing, place‑based approach – spending extended time in community and working with trusted navigators through a three-way partnership model. Participation increased substantially. Being physically present in remote and regional communities enabled rapport‑building, referrals, and engagement with people unlikely to participate through conventional methods. Higher participation led directly to stronger survey response numbers, deeper qualitative insights, and more credible evaluation findings. We show why investing time in-place, relationships, and partnership is central to evaluation quality.

Brokering and interpreting evaluation: An iTaukei experience
Author: Marilyn Vilisoni, Solve Pacific Consultancy
This presentation follows an iTaukei (Fijian) evaluator’s transition from a donor‑driven MEL role to independent consultancy, where evaluation becomes an act of brokering between donor logic and Indigenous priorities grounded in the preservation and revitalisation of iTaukei (Fijian) culture and traditions. It highlights three insights: (i) the evaluator’s role as a cultural broker navigating the space between external accountability and Indigenous values; (ii) the importance of cultural humility, emotional intelligence, and comfort with ambiguity in this intermediary work; and (iii) the centrality of trust in shaping MEL systems that honour both accountability requirements and the lived realities of Pacific communities.

Ethics for Evaluation
Author: Trina O'Donnell, Bellberry
Why do we have ethics reviews, who makes up the HREC, and when is a HREC review required? What are common issues that arise in the review of evaluations from the HREC perspective?

How can these be addressed to make the ethics application process smoother? The session will focus on the ethics review in contexts such as community-based evaluation, and policy or program evaluation, and we will explore issues that arise from the ethics review from Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) for evaluation.

Practical insights from HREC reviews will exemplify common issues from a HREC perspective. Examples of common HREC comments will introduce issues including study design, consent, community engagement,  respecting Indigenous perspectives and local knowledge, managing language and cultural differences, and responding ethically to the growing use of artificial intelligence and data technologies in evaluation.

Shifting the power: evaluation enabled, embedded and used in local contexts
Authors: Jessie Meaney-Davis Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Satib Nisha Khan Khan, Birth Fiji, Mary Raori, Australian Volunteers Program (Fiji)
Evaluations in international development – particularly organisational capacity assessments - are often experienced by organisations in Asia and the Pacific as a compliance requirement: externally driven, time-bound, and disconnected from daily decision-making. This paper presents insights from an alternative model in which 14 organisations in Fiji, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam – including organisations with no prior research experience - led their own participatory research on organisational capacity strengthening over three years, supported by the Australian Volunteers Program and the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney.

A representative from BIRTH Fiji, one of the participating organisations, shares three interrelated shifts in power that emerged through this approach. First, the model created space for organisational learning and reflection in a context that was previously dominated by delivery pressures and compliance-driven MEL. By embedding evaluative inquiry into organisational routines, evaluation shifted from a reporting requirement to a practice that supports sense-making, adaptation, and strategic thinking.

Second, by leading the evaluation themselves, with structured support rather than external control, staff developed confidence, skills and ownership of both the process and findings. Evaluation did not only assess organisational capacity strengthening, but it also actively contributed to it. The role of external actors shifted from conducting evaluation to enabling and scaffolding locally led inquiry.

Third, the process fostered peer learning across 14 organisations, creating a horizontal network of exchange and mutual support. This redistributed knowledge and influence away from donor-centric models towards collaboration grounded in shared regional experience.

These findings suggest that shifting the power in evaluation requires more than participatory methods, it requires repositioning evaluation as an embedded organisational practice, led locally and sustained over time. The paper offers practical implications for evaluators and commissioners seeking to move beyond evaluation as a product towards approaches that are owned, used, and valued in local contexts. 

Authors: Dana Cross, Piacarmel Andrews, Lyn Alderman

Across sectors, evaluators are increasingly seeking to move beyond assessing programs to shaping strategy, informing investment, strengthening accountability and supporting learning. Recent initiatives such as the Strengthening Evaluation in the Australian Government – Action Plan 2026–2030, with its emphasis on evaluation leadership, culture and use (and a call for Chief Evaluation Officers), reflect a broader trend: evaluation is being positioned as a core contributor to governance and decision making rather than a purely technical or advisory function.

This shift raises a provocative and timely question for the evaluation community: is there room in the C-suite for evaluators?

The presenters will explore whether closer proximity to executive power is necessary to strengthen evaluation’s influence and what might be gained or lost in the process. Rather than assuming that seniority automatically delivers impact, the discussion will examine different models of leadership, authority and positioning for evaluation across diverse organisational contexts.

Presenters will explore tensions such as:

• Whether executive level access enhances evaluation use or risks compromising independence and credibility.
• How evaluation leadership can be exercised without formal C suite roles.
• What “good” evaluation leadership looks like in different sectors, cultures and places

Drawing on lived experience from across settings, the panel will reflect on how evaluation currently shows up, or fails to show up, in senior decision making forums, and what alternatives exist for strengthening its influence. Audience pulse questions will be used to give live insights to broader experiences and views, with time for questions at the end of the session inviting participants to share perspectives from their own contexts and challenge assumptions about status, power and professional identity in evaluation.

Author: Carina Calzoni, AES Rob Sale, nous

The AES has been exploring its vision of “quality evaluation that makes a difference” through a strategic project - engaging members and examining evaluation theory and practice. This work has surfaced a central challenge: while the phrase is compelling, its meaning is complex, contested, and shaped by context.

This roundtable begins from that complexity—but does not seek to resolve it. Instead, it focuses on what comes next.
We will briefly share insights from the journey so far, including the multiple dimensions of “evaluation”, “quality”, and “making a difference”. These span tensions between evaluation as process, product, and profession; competing perspectives on quality (e.g. standards, utility, impact, values); and diverse understandings of use and influence across contexts and stakeholders.

The primary purpose of the session is to co-design how this conversation continues across the AES community. Participants will engage in facilitated small-group discussions to explore key questions: What does quality evaluation mean in your context? Who defines it? What does “making a difference” look like—and for whom? How should these conversations evolve as contexts, practice, and membership change?

Participants will then work together to identify practical ways to sustain and deepen engagement, such as ongoing communities of practice, publications, podcasts, or future conference formats. The session will capture and share these ideas to inform AES’s ongoing work.

Designed for intermediate to advanced evaluators, this roundtable creates space for collective reflection and future-oriented dialogue. By centring plurality and participation, it supports the AES vision by keeping the conversation alive—recognising that what constitutes “quality evaluation that makes a difference” must continue to evolve with the field.

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.

Culturally Grounded Evaluation: Innovative Methods from the Champions4Change Workshop 
Sunet Jordaan, Heart Foundation, Jacinta Hegarty, Heart Foundation
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 lead culturally safe education and advocacy about ARF and RHD their community. In 2025, the Heart Foundation delivered a Champions4Change workshop designed to strengthen knowledge, confidence and leadership skills among Champions. Evaluating this workshop required methods that were not only effective but culturally grounded and inclusive for participants with diverse languages, cultures and lived experiences.

This presentation shares the innovative evaluation approach used to assess knowledge gained, confidence built and participants’ workshop experience. Instead of conventional surveys, evaluators used Yarning circles, storytelling, and visual self-assessment tools. It created a culturally safe environment where Champions could express themselves in ways aligned with community ways of knowing, being and doing. First Nations facilitators who have built relationships with the champions presented the workshop. Champions placed themselves along a visual “road journey” to represent shifts in confidence. They described their understanding of ARF/RHD before and after training through yarning conversations and reflected on the workshop through group storytelling discussions. This approach produced richer and more meaningful insights than traditional surveys alone.

Three key messages will be highlighted:
1.Culturally grounded methods generate deeper, more authentic evaluation insights than commonly used evaluation tools amongst First Nations Peoples.
2.Visual and narrative approaches improve accessibility.
3.Evaluation can make space for lived experience leadership and self determination.

The session will include demonstrations of the visual scaling tools used in the evaluation, along with examples of themes, quotes and insights generated through the evaluation. This will show how culturally grounded methods can strengthen the quality and depth of evaluation findings. This presentation is aimed at foundational and intermediate evaluators interested in practical, culturally responsive techniques that support inclusive evaluation practice.
Agile Evaluation Approaches to Combatting Antisemitism in Australia
Author: Linda Gyorki, Allen and Clarke, Milo McKay, Allen and Clarke
his presentation makes the case for agile evaluation by demonstrating what methodological responsiveness looks like in practice through a real-world evaluation of place-based initiatives aimed at combating antisemitism and strengthening social cohesion.

Agile evaluation is increasingly essential. As global political developments, rising social polarisation, and the rapid spread of misinformation reshape local community dynamics, evaluators working in complex and sensitive environments can no longer rely on fixed designs. This presentation shows how evaluation can adapt without sacrificing rigour or credibility when the ground keeps shifting.

Three key lessons from this evaluation illustrate what agile practice looks like in action. First, polarisation affects who participates and how. Political and social tensions shape stakeholders' willingness and capacity to engage, making trust-building and relationship maintenance core evaluation competencies. Second, iterative data collection is essential. Multiple cycles of data gathering and reflection allow evaluators to surface emerging issues, adjust methods, and stay relevant as community dynamics evolve. Third, responsiveness itself builds credibility. When evaluation processes visibly adapt to local events and stakeholder realities, findings become more useful and the evaluation earns greater trust from the communities it serves.

Aligning with the conference theme "Making space, valuing place," the presentation examines how local evaluation practice must remain grounded in community experience even as it responds to broader global forces.
The session will be delivered as a concise 15-minute presentation with slides, sharing practical insights and methodological lessons for evaluators working in politically dynamic environments. Participants will be invited to reflect briefly on agility challenges in their own contexts, with the session closing on guided discussion prompts around navigating sensitivity, responding to external events, and maintaining rigour through adaptation.
Co-design and evaluation as bridges: An adaptive approach to delivering technology for coral reef conservation
Authors: Emily Maher, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Britta Schaffelke, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Ashton Gainsford, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Yashika Nand, Australian Institute of Marine Science, L.V. Nguyen, Institute of Oceanography, Glenda Cadigal, Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, D. Metali, Department of Fisheries Brunei Darussalam, Manuel Gonzalez Rivero, Australian Institute of Marine Science
Delivering multilateral science and technology-based conservation projects require working across disciplinary, sectoral, cultural and institutional boundaries. This involves engagement and partnership with multiple and diverse stakeholders, navigating unfamiliar governance structures and adapting to local conventions; complexities that are evident in coral reef monitoring and management in Southeast Asia. Here, efforts are also constrained by limited resources, capacity and capability and are often delivered in isolation, reducing their overall impact in supporting conservation efforts.

We present the adaptive project management and evaluation approaches used by the Australian Instit