Date and time: Friday 11 July 2025 12.30pm-1.30pm AEST
Topic: Critical elements in understanding CONTEXT
Location: online via Zoom, details will be shared just prior to the event
Presenter: Brian Keogh | NSW Regional Committee
Register online by: 10 May 2025

Event description:

Programs don’t operate in a vacuum; they’re embedded in dynamic social assemblages where amplifiers (like political alignment) and constrainers (like cultural resistance) forge outcomes. In realist evaluation, context is the decisive force—it co-creates success or failure for any program.

Evaluators have understood the importance of context, but the usual tool is a superficial SWOT. This session instead focuses on high-power contextual elements that any evaluation needs to be aware of:
• Political/regulatory currents (e.g., funding cycles, policy windows),
• Temporal readiness ("appetite" = the receptivity window for change),
• Social/cultural fabric (norms, trust networks, power centres).

These elements dictate the viability of a program. High-power contexts resist change stubbornly.

Presenter details:

Brian Keogh is a seasoned evaluation expert with over 20 years of experience developing monitoring and evaluation frameworks for complex environmental, water and social programs. He has led evaluations for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, NSW Office of Water, and Sydney Catchment Authority, integrating legislative requirements with ecological, economic, and social indicators. His work emphasises strategy mapping and systems analysis, particularly in contentious contexts like water policy where political alignment, regulatory currents, and community receptivity heavily influence outcomes.

As chair of the Australasian Evaluation Society’s Systems Evaluation SIG, he advances context-sensitive approaches, currently applying these to climate adaptation initiatives. Last year he completed a 'social power' evaluation with the Paul Ramsay Foundation. This session leans on this work.

Note: The session comprises of 40 mins of ideas and case studies, and 20 mins of discussion.

If this seminar is recorded, it will be available on the AES YouTube channel approximately four weeks after the date. We suggest you subscribe to the AES YouTube channel to be notified when new recordings are added.

This free event has been organised by the NSW Regional Network of the AES. Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators. 

Session start times:

VIC, NSW, ACT, TAS, QLD: 12.30pm

SA, NT: 12.00 pm

WA: 10.30am

New Zealand: 2.30pm

For other time zones please go to https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Please ensure you have access to your email address to receive the zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting.