Climate change is a problem that can and should be fought in multiple ways and at many different levels, argue policy researchers Michael Mintrom (ANZSOG) and Joannah Luetjens (Utrecht University) in their recent journal article. Policy entrepreneurs actively work with others in and around policymaking venues to promote policy change. They play – and will continue to play – an important role in efforts to address climate change.
Read MoreCan alcohol and drugs be called a ‘cause’ of family violence? What do we even mean when we talk about ‘causes’ of social problems? In this post, ANZSOG Research Fellow Sophie Yates (@MsSophieRae) outlines research she presented last month at the 5th European Conference on Politics and Gender. She explains why problem framing is so important in public policy, and explores the framing of policy actors talking about alcohol and drugs in Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence.
Read MoreIn today's post, originally published on the NDIS website, Peter Hanlon explores the University of Melbourne's Prof Anne Kavanagh's (@AKavanagh_melb) journey from doctor to epidemiologist to disability research and advocate - spurred by personal experience with how society influences the health of people living with disability. Now she has established the Centre of Research Excellence in Disability and Health (launched last week) and feels the passion of the staff she’s assembled there will surely bring about change.
Read MoreAs the first of its kind internationally, the Centre of Research Excellence in Disability and Health (CRE-DH) is Australia's new national research centre to improve the health of people with disabilities. The CRE-DH, in collaboration with key stakeholders, will gather the evidence needed to guide social and health policy reform. How will the organisation work? CRE-DH's Celia Green and Zoe Aitken explain.
Read MoreUN Gender Training is a policy that aims to reduce harmful behaviours in peacekeepers and unintended negative effects of peacekeeping missions; but does this well-intentioned, academically based, and centrally designed policy actually work in real life? In this article, Lisa Carson of UNSW Canberra's Public Service Research Group discusses the need for openness and knowledge transfer to strengthen policy design and implementation.
Read More"Joined-up government" has been around for some time and is still present in the lexicon of Australian politicians and public servants. But have we learned from our previous attempts at integrated approaches to government? In 2014, The Mandarin's David Donaldson spoke to UNSW Canberra's Gemma Carey, Fiona Buick, and Deborah Blackman as well as University of Melbourne's Janine O'Flynn and retired professor John Halligan about their views on this topic, and their comments are just as relevant today.
Read MoreThe Productivity Commission released the position paper National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Cost earlier this month. Today's post is from UNSW Canberra's Public Service Research Group's Helen Dickinson, who provides a succinct analysis of the report's findings. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read MoreCan using expectancy theory to manage expectations improve the operationlization of employee performance management and increase the possibility of creating high performance? Prof. Deborah Blackman, Dr. Fiona Buick, Prof. Janine O'Flynn, Prof. Michael O'Donnell and Dr. Damian West have published a paper on this very topic, and here's their summary of their study.
Read MorePolicy change in health often seems to be a reactive process with high profile failures in the delivery of healthcare prompting significant changes. Alison Brown, PhD candidate, University of Melbourne considers why major reforms in health care policy often seem driven by disaster rather than design.
Read MoreToday's post from Phillip Clarke from the University of Melbourne examines the need for better use of existing data sources to inform and target health prevention strategies. This post originally appeared in The Conversation
Read MoreThe controversies of the 2016 census now seem in the distant past but the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is busy collating the numbers from last year’s eventful census and are preparing for the release of data over the coming months. Stephen Gow, from specialist health system advisory service Open Advisory Pty Ltd, considers how the census powers our understanding of the notion of “place”.
Read MoreOlder adults are highly motivated to participate in research and rate depression as a priority research topic. So why aren’t we involving them more in research and policy development? Meg Polacsek, PhD Candidate, Victoria University, considers the importance of engaging with these members of our community.
Read MoreAustralia’s system of home ownership is, very slowly, starting to break. Since the 1950s we have enjoyed high levels of home ownership. Public policy helped people buy a home, which supported security in older age. Because ownership was ubiquitous, private renting was allowed to become insecure. In this post, Ben Spies-Butcher discusses the implications of this trend.
Read MoreHigher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK are showing a keener interest in gender equality and diversity at work than ever before. There is systematic interest in the progress we make, processes in place to measure our performance, manage our ambitions and focus our goals. There is also interest in spotting and managing talent. Right? If so, why is it then that more men advance into and currently occupy leadership positions than women? In this piece Rachel Dickinson discusses her early findings from a study looking at women in leadership roles in Senior Management Teams (SMT) in Higher Education.
Read MoreSuicide is complex, but helping to prevent suicide doesn’t have to be. Everyone has a role to play and there are some seemingly small changes, that we can all make, that have a big impact. Thinking about the language that we use can do just that. While our language can convey compassion, provide hope, empowerment and optimism, we can also unwittingly express messages that divide and stigmatise. This blog post by Emma Neilsen discusses how even everyday expressions may carry connotations we have not considered and speak to ideas we don’t condone.
Read MoreCollaboration remains the ‘go to’ or ‘gold-star’ strategy as governments, business and community look to connect people, break down silos, cross boundaries, build partnerships and generate collective impact. All of which leads to collaborative advantage. It is likely that this preference will continue well into the future. The allure of collaboration is seen as self-evident: by leveraging the synergies formed from working together, innovation is possible, new knowledge is built, and complex, intractable social and economic problems can be resolved. In addition to these social benefits are the expected cost savings to be had from working in more connected or integrated ways. Robyn Keast*, Michael Charles* and Piotr Modzelewski** discuss the cost of collaboration.
Read MoreSet at the Manus detention centre in Papua New Guinea, the film Chauka Please Tell Us the Time is a unique collaboration between Iranian-Kurdish journalist detainee Behrouz Boochani andIranian-Dutch filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani, made with footage from a mobile phone.
Showing this month, it is the latest piece of brave, innovative work from Boochani to shine a light on what happens in Australia's offshore detention world, where few Australian journalists have been able to venture and health and other workers have risked prison to speak out.
In this interview with Enza Capobianco from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Boochani talks about the film and how he has sought a different way to tell the story of detention because ’the language of journalism is too weak to describe the reality in this prison'.
The interview is republished here with permission from ACMI - read the original post here. Chauka Please Tell Us the Time is showing at the ACMI in Melbourne from June 16-18 and at the Sydney Film Festival on June 11 and 15.
Read MoreThe Croakey independent public health journalism team has issued a plea to readers and contributors to consider making a submission to the current Senate inquiry into the future of public interest journalism before the closing date of 15 June 2017.
It is republished here with permission, to also urge Power to Persuade readers and contributors and others – policymakers, public servants, community sector workers, researchers and anyone else with a stake in public policy – to engage in this important debate.
As the Croakey post notes, the inquiry is an opportunity for civil society to be involved in re-imagining futures for public interest journalism which plays a vital role in spotlighting and addressing disadvantage.
Read MoreThe Healing Foundation last week launched a new report into the Stolen Generations, to mark 20 years since the landmark Bringing Them Home report.
Bringing Them Home 20 Years On sets out an action plan to overhaul Australia’s Indigenous policy landscape that raises urgent challenges and concerns for social policy and practice, from mental health through to aged care.
Healing Foundation CEO Richard Weston writes that the report has identified four immediate priorities that are achievable, cost effective, and can reset the policy response to a group of Australians who have been so wronged, at the time of their removal and since.
Read MoreThe Referendum Council for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples plans to deliver its final report to the Federal Government on June 30.
It follows the landmark Uluru Statement from the Heart delivered last Friday by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates to the National Constitution Convention at Uluru which, Council co-chair Mark Leibler says, will be given "a great deal of weight" in the final report.
In the post below, first published at The Conversation, Constitutional law and Indigenous rights researcher Harry Hobbs outlines the key components of the Uluru statement and their historic context.
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