APO Blog

APO Events – October 2018

APO Forum 2018: Redesigning the Public Knowledge System – Thursday 25 October

The APO Annual Forum is being held next week. To redesign the public knowledge system is a group effort, so there will be time for discussion and we will be filming and writing up the results of the day for publication. This is a very special event which we hope will lead to further advocacy and action on the issues raised. You can download the Program here. It’s not too late to Register!

This year we are also hosting a free networking event and film screening, and a workshop with US based academic Julia Littell on systematic reviews and evidence-based policy. See below for details.

Introduction to Systematic Reviews for Evidence-Based Policy: One day workshop – Friday 26 October

Systematic reviews are an increasingly popular approach to evaluating research and evidence across health and social science disciplines and now being used in many policy areas. The aim is to ensure your research and analysis is planned, structured and logical.

Dr Julia Littell

This workshop will be presented by Dr Julia Littell, Professor of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College (US) who also works with the The Campbell Collaboration, an organisation dedicated to evidence synthesis for evidence-based policy and practice. Introduction to Systematic Reviews for the Social Sciences will be held on Friday 26 October at Swinburne University. This full day workshop is only $50/25 with lunch and slide printouts included. Book tickets

Paywall The Business of Scholarship: Networking drinks and film screening at ACMI X – Wednesday 24 October

Paywall In support of Open Access Week APO is hosting a FREE screening of Paywall: The Business of Scholarship on Wednesday 24 October. Join us for networking drinks from 6pm and film screening at 7pm at ACMI X, behind the Arts Centre on St Kilda Road. This documentary is essential viewing for anyone involved in academic research and publishing, or open science. Register here

Paywall image — Paywall: The Business of Scholarship

Get in touch

If you have questions about any APO events you can email us at event@apo.org.au

Guest Blog: The Stolen Generation: Eliminating intergenerational trauma in our nation – by Richard Weston

APO will be attending the Global Evidence and Implementation Summit (GEIS) 2018 this October – in the lead up, we offer a taste of some of the speakers. Richard Weston, CEO of The Healing Foundation, Canberra Australia, is a keynote speaker at the Global Evidence and Implementation Summit (GEIS) 2018, being held from 22-24 October in Melbourne, Australia. In this blog post, Richard describes how The Healing Foundation is using evidence to better understand and respond to intergenerational trauma for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Richard will present more about the organisation’s work at GEIS 2018.

The Healing Foundation in Australia, a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Organisation, is focused on eliminating intergenerational trauma and supporting our people to heal. We are not inherently ‘bad’ or ‘criminal’ people, although we make up disproportionate numbers in the child protection, juvenile justice and adult corrections systems in Australia. For example, we comprise almost one-third of the adult prison population but are only 3% of the overall population of Australia. Continue reading “Guest Blog: The Stolen Generation: Eliminating intergenerational trauma in our nation – by Richard Weston”

Guest blog: What is Policy?

hans-peter-gauster-252751-unsplash — Image: Hans Peter Gauster (Unsplash)

What Is Policy?

I had been asking myself – and everyone else – this question a hundred times this week. ‘What is Policy?’

True to my millennial breeding, I turn to Google.

Policy.

Noun: policy; plural noun: policies

a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organisation or individual.

Your standard stiff dictionary definition – but I didn’t want a textbook definition, or politician’s definition either.

I wanted to know what YOU thought Policy meant. I wanted to know what everyone else thought it meant, and WHY it might be important.

This was one of my first tasks. On my first day at APO, I stepped out of a brand meeting in which we were discussing the many facets of what Policy is, does and can be.

For me, the meeting opened up a pandora’s box of what policy actually is – action.
Did anyone pick up on the contradiction that the word ‘policy’ is a noun defined by a verb – action?

The act of policy encompasses a lot of what we take for granted in our day to day lives.

It is the prevention, the response, the intervention, the technology, the improvement, the catalyst, the continuation, the past, the present, the future – policy is the entire network of what regulates our lives.

It’s a lot. Continue reading “Guest blog: What is Policy?”

Fighting poverty with evidence – an interview with Dr Naomi Rutenberg

APO will be attending the Global Evidence and Implementation Summit (GEIS) 2018 this October – in the lead up, we offer a taste of some of the speakers.

In this interview, Dr Naomi Rutenberg, Principal Associate, The Forest Hills Group, shares her thoughts on the changing role of evidence in the international development sector. Dr Naomi Rutenberg will deliver a much-anticipated presentation at the Global Evidence and Implementation Summit (GEIS) 2018 in Melbourne, 22-24 October.

Over your career, how have you seen the role of evidence change within the international development sector?

‘First, the attention to evidence for monitoring progress and identifying effective approaches and programs has increased exponentially – and all easily accessed through the internet. There are numerous trackers, such as Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and HIV data trackers, of development program outputs and outcomes, hundreds of program evaluations produced by groups like 3ie and Innovations for Poverty Action, and massive open data banks at the World Bank and elsewhere.

‘In addition to a huge increase in the amount of evidence, evidence is also being used in different ways – well beyond program evaluation or tracking progress. One example is for micro-targeting program resources, where there is great need for program investments. An illustration of this is using data on recent HIV infections to identify “hotspots” of HIV transmission to prioritise for interventions. Another is combining research methods, such as impact evaluation and implementation research, to understand not only if a program works but for whom and why.’

How is evidence helping to address international development challenges and needs? Continue reading “Fighting poverty with evidence – an interview with Dr Naomi Rutenberg”

APO Forum 2018 – themes and speakers announced

The second APO Annual Forum will be held on 25 October 2018 at Engineers Australia in Melbourne. Tickets can be purchased from the Eventbrite page. Follow updates on Twitter #APOForum2018

The APO Forum brings together policy people from a wide range of sectors including education, government, commercial, NGOs, as well as think tanks, media and more. It provides a platform for shared expertise, experience, learnings, and an opportunity for academics, researchers, policy professionals, and students to connect.

APO-Forum-2018-Eventbrite-(2160x1080)

Redesigning the Public Knowledge System

Across government, academia, the community sector and industry, the production, use and management of publicly funded research and information is in crisis – both in Australia and around the world. Determined efforts are underway in many sectors but often occur in isolation from other campaigns and without a sense of the wider system.

Held during International Open Access week, the second APO Forum will focus on ‘Redesigning the Public Knowledge System: New Tools and Strategies for Research, Policy and Practice’ and respond to the Open Access week call to ‘Design the equitable foundations for open knowledge’.

We would like the Forum to further our understanding of the issues affecting research publishing and use in public policy, practice and industry, and look at how we can change aspects of the system to ensure public knowledge is F.A.I.R. (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) now and into the future. The discussion topics will cover:

The challenges and opportunities for research engagement and impact, knowledge mobilisation, equity and access, open government
Innovative publishing and social data platforms
The potential and dangers of new technologies and automated decision-making
Business models and strategies for reinventing and supporting the public value of knowledge.

Download the Program.

Speakers

We are delighted to announce a stellar lineup of speakers. They include:

Dr Howard White – CEO, Campbell Collaboration (APO Forum keynote speaker)
Assoc. Prof Catherine Althaus – Associate Dean (Academic), Australian and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG)
Dr Amir Aryani – Head of Social Data Analytics Lab, Social Innovation Research Institute, Swinburne University of Technology
Prof Ginny Barbour – Director, Australasian Open Access Strategy Group (AOASG), Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
Dr Ken Coghill – Chair, Open Government Partnership, Civil Society Network
Prof Jane Farmer – Director, Social Innovation Research Institute, Swinburne University of Technology
Prof Lisa Given – Associate Dean (Research and Engagement), Faculty of Health, Arts and Design, Swinburne University of Technology
Prof Susan Luckman – Professor, Cultural Studies in the School of Creative Industries, University of South Australia (UniSA)
Karen Mahlab AM – Founder and CEO of Pro Bono Australia
Pru Mitchell – Manager of Information Services, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)
Gwenda Thomas – Director, Scholarly Services & University Librarian, The University of Melbourne
Prof Julian Thomas – Director, Enabling Capability Platform (ECP), Social Change, RMIT University.

Lightning talks and workshops

The Forum will provide a unique opportunity for delegates to participate in 5 minute lighting talks on the above themes. In addition, there will be a film screening of Paywall at ACMI X on Wednesday 24 October, as well as a number of workshops to be held on Friday 26 October at Swinburne University – more details to be announced soon.

We look forward to seeing you there!

APO Director joins international committee for FAST terminology

APO Director, Amanda Lawrence recently joined the first international FAST Policy and Outreach Committee (FPOC) – one of the library domain’s most widely-used subject terminology schemas.

Amanda-Lawrence_350x316(own-page)

‘APO adopted the FAST classification system a few years ago, and it’s also used by the Informit database, Amanda Lawrence says. ‘We have been focusing on making APO more interoperable with other systems over the past few years. Working with an international vocabulary like FAST is part of the information infrastructure that supports that goal.’

OCLC support for FAST

FAST (or Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) is is a collaborative effort between the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Research and the Library of Congress, dating all the way back to 1998.

OCLC is committed to the growth and support of FAST and are actively working to transition it from an experimental research environment to OCLC production servers. The first stage, which is underway, is transitioning FAST to a production database and they are currently analysing options for next steps, based on community needs and interest.

FPOC Committee

Based in the US, OCLC has partnered with representatives from the library community to create a new FAST Policy and Outreach Committee (FPOC).

‘This is the first time that there has been an international committee to discuss the future developments of FAST,’ says Lawrence.

FPOC will represent users of FAST for the purposes of:

establishing editorial policies regarding terms
overseeing community engagement, term contributions and procedures
recommending directions and goals for development/improvements
and much more (see http://oc.lc/FASTcommittee for additional details).

Continue reading “APO Director joins international committee for FAST terminology”

Highlights from the KM2018 conference

In the first week of July, Amanda Lawrence and I attended the Knowledge Mobilisation Conference (KM2018) in Sydney, hosted by the Sax Institute. It was a packed event, with an audience of about 60 per cent researchers, 20 per cent policy makers, and the rest somewhere in between.

Amanda presenting at KM2018 — Amanda presenting at 2018 Knowledge Mobilisation conference in Sydney

bridge

The discussions and workshops were all about ways to bridge the gap between researchers and policy makers. The focus was on health, but the learnings are applicable across all public policy.

My key points from the conference:

Finding, building and sustaining relationships

Researchers are challenged by the situation where people in government adviser roles change frequently, making it difficult to engage, and sustain engagement.

And from the other side, it is hard to ‘find an expert’.

While at the same time it is recognised that relationship building, and ‘deliberative dialogues’, help with knowledge translation.

Speaking the right language, as well as listening the right way Continue reading “Highlights from the KM2018 conference”