aes17 Alert: Nicholas Gruen calls for an Evaluator General

Nicholas Gruen to call for an Evaluator General at the 2017 AES International Evaluation Conference

The prominent policy economist, entrepreneur and commentator Nicholas Gruen (pictured) will be a guest speaker at the aes17 International Evaluation Conference, 4-6 September 2017 at the National Convention Centre.

The CEO and Founder of Lateral Economics, Dr Gruen has advised Cabinet Ministers, sat on the Productivity Commission, been a Council Member of the National Library of Australia, and chaired the Federal Government’s Innovation Australia, the Australian Centre for Social Innovation and the Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce.

Last year he called for the establishment of an “Evaluator-General” – as a way of ensuring that genuine evidence-based policy in practice became as key a function as accounting within Government.

At the conference, he will propose that “senior managers and politicians often talk about the need for ‘evidence-based policy’, but like the weather, they do little about it.” Essentially he argues this is “Because it’s hard – much harder than the boosters understand. Evaluation’s low status in the professional policy making hierarchy, its being outsourced to ‘experts' – often with their own institutional imperatives.... and senior managers’ consequent lack of familiarity with its demands, has effectively prevented it ever being properly tried.”

Dr Gruen will explain how an “Evaluator General” would:

• raise the professional status of monitoring and evaluation expertise,
• collaboratively integrate it into the making and delivery of policy and programs
• generate monitoring and evaluation outputs that are publicly reported in as close to real-time as possible, and
• optimise ongoing performance and accountability.

Dr Gruen will address delegates on Wednesday September 6 at 11am in the Sutherland Theatrette, Ground Floor National Convention Centre.

Online conference registrations are open until 23 August

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Pre and Post conference workshops

At this year's conference we are offering a day of pre-conference workshops on Sunday 3rd September and a day of post-conference workshops on Thursday 7th September covering a range of evaluation theories and methods, practices and tools.

The program features a strong selection of workshops for evaluation professionals, and commissioners, government, policy makers, and students at every level of experience, interest, and expertise. The program features keynotes speakers, as well as leaders in evaluative thinking from New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.

The conference workshop program is available online and you can also download a printable version. We have also included abstracts to help you decide if the workshop suits your level of experience and expertise. Each workshop is clearly identified as either introductory, intermediate, or advanced, and where relevant the target audience is specified.

Register now to secure your place.