Date and time: Friday 13 June, 12.00pm-1.00pm AEST
Topic: Panarchy - How do complex systems change and persist over time?
Presenter(s): Kara Scally Irvine, Julie Elliot, Andrew Hawkins & Brian Keogh | AES Systems SIG
Venue: Via Zoom. Details will be emailed to registrants just prior to the start time.
Register online by: 12 June 2025

Event description:

"Panarchy" is a framework for understanding how complex systems, such as ecosystems, organisations, or communities, change and persist over time. It describes systems as being made up of interconnected layers, each operating at different scales and speeds. Central to "panarchy" is the idea of adaptive cycles: systems move through phases of growth, collapse, and renewal, with changes at one level influencing, and being influenced by, other levels.

Originally developed in ecology, "panarchy" has become increasingly relevant for systems thinking, including evaluation. It offers a way to make sense of resilience, transformation, and cross-scale interactions, helping evaluators and systems thinkers understand how change and stability emerge in complex environments.

As it happens, Kara (one of our SIG committee members) has used "Panarchy" in her PhD thesis, so we felt it would make a great topic for discussion with you all.

Presenter details:

Kara Scally-Irvine brings over 20 years of expertise in research, monitoring, and evaluation, with a distinguished career spanning diverse sectors including science/innovation, international development, education, and sport. As Principal Consultant and Director of KSI Consulting Limited, she specializes in systems thinking and interdisciplinary approaches to complex evaluation challenges, particularly in designing sustainable, fit-for-purpose evaluation frameworks. In 2023 Kara's work was recognised with an Australian Evaluation Society (AES) Excellence in Evaluation Systems Award for leading the iPEN initiative, a collaborative evaluation capability-building program across New Zealand’s Crown Research Institutes. Also presenting will be Julie Elliot, Andrew Hawkins and Brian Keogh.

This free event has been organised by the AES Systems SIG. 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. 

This seminar will be be recorded

• VIC, NSW, ACT, TAS, QLD: 12.00pm

• SA, NT: 11.30am

• WA: 10.00am

• New Zealand: 2.00pm

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

Please ensure you have access to your email address just prior to the start time to access Zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting. Thanks.