One of the benefits about the conference is you can just have these conversations. You might not get an answer, but it gives you space to have a chat — and you're allowed to have a chat and that's okay.
Matt & Tenille
Hosts, It Depends Podcast | First Person Consulting
About This Series
In this three-part series, Matt and Tenille bring you a daily debrief from the 2025 Australian Evaluation Society Conference in Canberra — AES25: Beyond the Bubble. Each episode covers the keynotes, sessions and hallway conversations from that day, capturing the ideas, provocations and moments that sparked the most discussion across the three days. There's one episode per day, so you can listen in order or jump to the day that interests you most.
Episode 6.1 — Day 1: Binaries and Systems · Andy Fugard's keynote challenges the binary thinking embedded in evaluation practice. Matt and Tenille also cover sessions on equity-focused evaluation, professional development, systems effects mapping, and place-based approaches in a big-city context.
Episode 6.2 — Day 2: Validation and Meaning · A powerful keynote from Bobby Maher and Rae on First Nations evaluation and collective capability. Plus Gerard Atkinson's session on political bias in evaluation, a session on inclusive evaluation for people with disability, and Matt's presentation of the VALUE competency framework.
Episode 6.3 — Day 3: Connection and Collaboration · Bianca Montrose-Moorhead on foxes and hedgehogs in evaluation, ignite presentations from Joey and Jo Farmer, and a closing reflection on what the conference as a whole offered — in terms of both content and connection.
Key Takeaways
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1
Challenging binaries opens up better evaluation thinking
Andy Fugard's Day 1 keynote challenged evaluators to move beyond either/or categories — from qual versus quant to method choices — raising the question of how we preserve meaning when stories get distilled into themes or data points.
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2
Move beyond performative inclusion in First Nations evaluation
The Day 2 keynote challenged the sector not to ask Indigenous evaluators to step up, but to ask how non-Indigenous practitioners can step back — and genuinely create the conditions for Aboriginal self-determination in evaluation, including through community-controlled data models.
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3
Know your biases — including your political ones
A Day 2 session presented evidence that the evaluation community skews politically left, prompting honest reflection on how unconscious bias can shape the work evaluators produce — and why that conversation is worth having in the open.
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4
Evaluation needs both foxes and hedgehogs
Bianca Montrose-Moorhead's Day 3 keynote argued the sector needs both those who go deep on rigour (hedgehogs) and those who synthesise across disciplines (foxes) — and that a healthy evaluation ecosystem depends on valuing and combining both.
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5
Connection is the conference's real offering
Across all three days, the recurring theme was less about any single session and more about the conversations — the chance to reconnect with colleagues, think out loud with people at different career stages, and find your people in a field that can feel quite isolated.
Topics Covered
Resources Mentioned
- AES25: Beyond the Bubble — the 2025 Australian Evaluation Society Conference website
- Australian Evaluation Society — the professional association for evaluators in Australia and New Zealand
- Bobby Maher's paper on collective capability — referenced in Episode 6.2; link in the episode show notes
- Jo Farmer's evaluation report — Beyond Bricks and Bars — public report discussed in Episode 6.3; link in the episode show notes
- Inclusive Evaluation Guide aligned with Australia's Disability Strategy — discussed in Episode 6.2; forthcoming online
- Gilimbaa — First Nations evaluation network — referenced across Episodes 6.1 and 6.2
About AES25
Australian Evaluation Society Conference 2025
Beyond the Bubble | Canberra, ACT
AES25 was the annual conference of the Australian Evaluation Society, held in Canberra under the theme Beyond the Bubble. It brought together evaluators from across Australia, New Zealand and beyond — spanning government, consulting, academia and community — to share practice, challenge assumptions and connect across disciplines. Roughly half of attendees were first-timers, making it a space for both emerging and experienced evaluators. The 2026 conference will be held in Darwin.
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