The Super Six Ideas Shaping Evaluation in Australia

Abstract

Over the past decade, evaluation practice in Australia has evolved in response to shifting social, political and cultural contexts. Drawing on ten years of Australian Evaluation Society (AES) publications, submissions, thought pieces and key government strategy documents, this article synthesises patterns in evaluation discourse and practice and identifies six influential ideas shaping the field. These ideas are grouped into three themes: People First, Methods and Technology and Embed and Evolve.

This special feature article arising from a presentation at the AES Internation Evaluation Conference in Canberra (2025) in which a panel of evaluation leaders, Associate Professor Amy Gullickson, Eleanor Williams, Doyen Radcliffe and Theo Nabben, explored these ideas and tensions within, emphasising the centrality of people, relationships and meaningful change. Through the lens of the Super Six, they contend that evaluation’s true value lies in its capacity to empower communities and improve lives – re-centring people, relationships and values as critical measures of evaluation quality and impact.

Keywords

Australian evaluation context values-based evaluation professionalisation of evaluation indigenous-led evaluation artificial intelligence in evaluation embedded evaluation

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