aes26 International Evaluation Conference

Authors: Kristine Tuban, Save the Children, Martin Holmstrand, Save the Children
This presentation showcases MEAL Uplift, a regional initiative by Save the Children Australia that strengthens digital monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) across Pacific Country Offices through a close partnership between programme teams, MEAL, and the Technology team. The presentation focuses on how this collaboration produced a practical, co‑created digital solution while building long‑term organisational capability.

The objective of the presentation is to demonstrate why cross‑disciplinary partnership is critical to improving data quality, efficiency, and use in evaluation practice, and how evaluation can actively shape digital transformation, rather than simply adopting technological tools after they are introduced. This is important in contexts where teams face increasing reporting demands but limited capacity to manage fragmented or manual data systems.

The core argument is that sustainable digital MEAL is achieved when three elements are intentionally integrated:
(1) Digital systems and infrastructure, illustrated through a custom‑built data collection app and automated data pipeline co‑designed with the Technology team to address efficiency and quality challenges;
(2) Skills and behaviours, supported through targeted training, coaching, and practical use of real data; and
(3) Scaling and institutional support, through shared standards, governance, and regional scaffolding that embeds digital MEAL into everyday practice.

The presentation will follow this three‑part structure, using concrete examples and lessons from MEAL Uplift to show what worked, what changed, and why.

Participant engagement will be promoted through short reflection prompts on participants’ own digital MEAL challenges, followed by shared discussion and an open Q&A focused on transferable ideas and co‑created solutions across different organisational contexts.

Author: Jess Dart, Clear Horizon
This paper introduces the Collective Noticing Method (CNM) and explores its relevance for measurement, evaluation and learning (MEL). Developed by the author, CNM offers evaluators and changemakers a collaborative way to notice, learn from, and respond to subtle and emerging changes. It is a rigorous yet flexible method with a strong focus on learning and collective sensemaking, well suited to the “messy middle” of systems change and place-based work. It also has potential for community and grassroots work, program portfolios, and research impact tracking.

Collective noticing as a practice has a long history, evident in approaches such as Outcome Harvesting, Most Significant Change (MSC), citizen science, ripple effect monitoring, and context monitoring. More recently, this practice has been enabled and accelerated by emerging digital platforms and AI. Building on these foundations, CNM intentionally harnesses the eyes and ears of those implementing and experiencing an initiative to bring shared attention to what is changing.CNM is inherently participatory, inviting many people to observe, document, and interpret change collectively. It values lived experience as a central source of insight, embraces uncertainty, and supports adaptive action grounded in what is actually emerging. As a decolonising and grounded approach to MEL, CNM shares power by broadening who defines what matters and what counts as evidence. It centres learning-oriented measurement and collective sensemaking, bringing forward subtle signals, relational shifts, and everyday insights that conventional approaches often overlook.

CMN involves impact logging and tracking against agreed ways of working and learnings, whereas Outcome Harvesting focuses on outcomes and tends to be done as a one-off study. It differs from MSC in that CNM uses shorter, multi-perspective logs across diverse categories and evidence types.This session introduces CNM and invites participants to critically explore its benefits, limitations, and the contexts in which it is most—and least—useful.

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, Arts Centre Melbourne
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
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!

Cultural identity as a shield: Measuring the social value of Culture and Kinship
Authors: Louise Green, Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, Lily Edwards Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative
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.

Author: Caroline Henwood, The Ian Potter Foundation
Increasingly organisations are leaning into the “L” in MEL. Learning is a critical component of evaluation it is the opportunity to turn findings and insights into something practical to inform adaptation. However, evaluators often reflect on the report on the desk, or of evaluations occurring after decisions are made. Shifting the focus to learning creates a different space and dynamic for conversations to occur – a key practice in Developmental Evaluation. 

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.

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-Ju) Chen, Taiwan Pride Sydney
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: Simon Alaba, ARTD Consultants, Rachel Aston, ARTD, Brad Astbury, University of Melbourne
Primary prevention programs targeting boys and young men at risk of using violence operate in a space where the evidence base is still developing, and knowing what works, for whom, and in what circumstances, is far from settled.

This presentation draws on 3 years of developmental evaluation of a primary prevention pilot to share three interconnected findings at the intersection of evaluation practice and implementation science.

First, we present evidence that participant and program alignment is among the most influential contextual factors shaping outcomes – a finding with direct implications for how programs like this should be targeted and resourced.

Second, we discuss how a significant program design shift, from targeting harmful gender norms directly to exploring participants' own values as an entry point, improved engagement and created the conditions for more meaningful reflection on masculinity and behaviour.

Third, we explore the adaptation dilemma: when evaluation signals resistance from participants, how should program designers respond?

Drawing on findings across multiple pilot phases, we discuss the tension between adapting to improve engagement and holding firm on program fidelity when discomfort is itself part of the change process. We close by examining what these findings mean for how evaluators interpret and communicate success in primary prevention settings, where uniform outcomes are neither expected nor realistic, and where the most meaningful impacts may be concentrated among a subset of participants.

Attendees will leave with practical insights applicable to developmental evaluation, pilot program design, and the evaluation of complex social programs more broadly. The session will close with audience discussion that invites participants to reflect on how these findings apply to their own evaluation contexts.

Author: Victoria Thanasos, Menzies School of Health Research
Introducing new tools into complex health service environments is rarely straightforward, particularly where they intersect with diverse ways of knowing, being, and valuing. This short paper shares insights from piloting the What Matters 2 Adults (WM2A) tool with dialysis patients in the Top End of the Northern Territory, focusing on how feasibility, appropriateness, and potential risks are assessed in practice.

Drawing on a formative evaluation approach, the project combined yarning circles, interviews, and reflective sessions with renal patients and stakeholders. Rapid qualitative analysis, informed by implementation science, was used to identify key barriers, enablers, and contextual factors shaping the tool’s potential use.

Three key insights emerged. First, feasibility is not just about logistics, but about meaning – how questions are understood and experienced. Second, appropriateness is not fixed but negotiated in place, requiring ongoing adaptation to language, delivery, and context. Third, introducing new tools carries risks – including burden, misinterpretation, and unintended consequences – that must be actively surfaced and managed.

Rather than presenting final outcomes, this paper focuses on the decisions, tensions, and trade-offs that shaped the pilot, including the deliberate decoupling of tool administration from routine service delivery to minimise burden on patients and staff while enabling deeper exploration. Participants will be invited to reflect on how they assess feasibility, appropriateness, and risk in their own contexts.

Overall, this paper positions evaluation as critical to assessing not just whether a tool works, but whether it fits – offering practical insights for context-sensitive, responsible approaches in complex, culturally diverse settings.

Authors: Alan Woodward, Alan Woodward Consulting, Leanne Kelly, Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University
Evaluations of community-based and place-based programs regularly require methods capable of examining context, relationships, and emergent outcomes. While case studies are a long-standing qualitative research approach, they are often under-utilized or misunderstood within evaluation practice. Drawing on the evaluation of Australian Red Cross’ Community Resilience Teams as an applied example, the presentation demonstrates how case study design enabled exploration of contextual dynamics, stakeholder perspectives, and underlying mechanisms that would not have been visible through survey or indicator-driven approaches alone. Participants will be offered practical guidance on when case studies are suitable and considerations for conducting case study activities.

Author: Joanne Cummings, Anglicare Sydney
Community food programs are commonly assessed through output-focused lenses, emphasising quantities of food or financial relief provided. This paper draws on a mixed methods evaluation of Anglicare Sydney’s Community Pantry program to argue for an expanded evaluative frame that recognises community pantries as third spaces—informal, non-commercial places beyond home and work where social connection, belonging and trust are built.

The evaluation combined customer and volunteer surveys (n=709), interviews and observations across 10 locations in NSW. While affordable food remained a critical entry point, findings show that many significant outcomes emerged through the Pantry’s role as a third space: a predictable, welcoming environment where people could linger, converse, build relationships and experience dignity without stigma. Customers reported reduced isolation, new friendships and feelings of belonging, while volunteers experienced increased wellbeing, purpose and community connection. These relational conditions also enabled “soft pathways” into further support services that were not easily captured through standard referral metrics alone.

The study offers several practical insights for evaluators. First, place-based programs require outcome frameworks that extend beyond material provision to include dignity, trust, connection and shifting social norms. Second, place itself should be treated as data: physical layouts, hospitality practices and local context shaped experiences and outcomes, making systematic observation an essential method. Third, mixed methods designs were vital for understanding not only what changed, but how third space dynamics generated change over time. Finally, incorporating multiple stakeholder perspectives revealed benefits for communities and volunteers, which may be invisible in customer-based evaluations.

The presentation will walk through the mixed methods approach, share visual examples illustrating how place-based conditions shaped outcomes, and distil three key insights about the relational impact of community pantries. It will conclude with a guided reflection inviting participants to consider how they currently assess belonging, dignity and connection in their own work.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)
Organisational capacity assessments in international development are often experienced by organisations in Asia and the Pacific as externally driven compliance exercises, disconnected from everyday decision-making. This paper presents an alternative model in which 14 organisations in Fiji, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam — including some with no prior research experience — led participatory research on organisational capacity strengthening over three years, supported by the Australian Volunteers Program and the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney.

Drawing on reflections from BIRTH Fiji, the paper identifies three interrelated shifts in power. First, embedding evaluative inquiry into organisational routines created space for learning and reflection in contexts dominated by delivery pressures and compliance-focused monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL). Evaluation became a tool for adaptation and strategic thinking rather than reporting alone. Second, organisations developed confidence, skills, and ownership by leading the evaluation process themselves, with external actors acting as facilitators rather than controllers. Evaluation therefore contributed directly to organisational capacity strengthening. Third, the process fostered peer learning across the 14 organisations, creating horizontal networks of exchange and redistributing knowledge and influence away from donor-centric models. The paper argues that meaningful power shifts in evaluation require locally led, embedded, and sustained evaluative practice.

Brokering and interpreting evaluation: An iTaukei experience
Authors: 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Author: Lucie Moore, Commonwealth Treasury
Across governments, there is growing recognition of the need to make space for high quality evidence and embed evaluation into policy design and decision‑making. This presentation examines what two national governments, the UK and Australia, are doing to improve the quality, quantity and use of evaluation across the public sector, drawing on my personal experience working within both the UK Government’s Evaluation Task Force (ETF) and the Australian Government’s Australian Centre for Evaluation (ACE).

In the UK, the ETF is a joint Cabinet Office–HM Treasury unit established to ensure that evidence and evaluation sit “at the heart of spending decisions”. It works to improve how government programmes are evaluated, providing advice on designing and delivering evaluations and challenging departments to be transparent by including evaluations on the publicly accessible, Evaluation Registry website. The ETF also leads cross‑government capability building, including the Evaluation Academy, which has trained hundreds of evaluation experts who have in turn trained thousands of public servants on evaluation. These initiatives aim to expand both the volume and quality of evaluation activity and strengthen its use in decision‑making.

In Australia, ACE was established to “put evaluation evidence at the heart of policy design and decision‑making,” with a mandate to improve the volume, quality and use of evaluation evidence across government. ACE supports the Commonwealth Evaluation Policy, strengthens evaluation capability, delivers evaluations, and improves evaluation planning in the budget process. Together, these reforms seek to build an evaluative culture across the Australian Public Service.

The objective of this presentation is to share these cross‑government efforts with the wider evaluation community, highlighting traditions and new ways, boundaries and bridges, and the roots and routes shaping reform, and to provide space for attendees to ask questions and explore implications.

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: 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
Author: Sunet Jordaan, Tennele Shields 
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.

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: 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.