Lead Researchers
A Prof Summer Finlay (University of Woollongong, NSW)
Prof Margaret Cargo (Flinders University)
Other Team Members
Prof Bronwyn Fredericks (University of Queensland, Qld)
Dr Yvette Roe (Charles Darwin University, NT)
Dr Jenni Judd (Central Queensland University, Qld)
Prof James Smith (Flinders University, SA)
Anna Temby, Research Assistant (University of Woollongong)
Whakauae Researcher
Dr Amohia Boulton
Description
This multiyear study, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia (GNT1165913) seeks to identify how the commissioning practices of Australian government entities (i.e. federal, state/territory) and non-government organisations (e.g., not-for-profit, corporate, foundation, philanthropic) can better support Indigenous engagement and leadership in the evaluation of health and wellbeing programmes in Australia. Despite the significant levels of funding that are invested in improving Indigenous health and wellbeing outcomes in Australia, there is little evidence of program effectiveness to inform policy and practice. This project aims to gather evidence on the modes of evaluation commissioning practices used, with a view to improving those practices, and ultimately ensuring investment in Indigenous programming provides value to communities.
Progress
The project officially concluded in June of this year, following a highly successful roundtable held in Canberra (see the related story).
A report outlining the results of that Roundtable has recently been released, summarising the discussions and key recommendations from the Indigenous Commissioning Evaluations Roundtable held in April 2025. The roundtable was attended by members of the research team, the Project Advisory Group (PAG), industry stakeholders and other interested parties all of whom came together to hear the project’s key findings and in turn discuss the implications of these finding for their own work. Participants explored a range of evaluation commissioning models chiefly in the field of public health, well as considering issues such as the governance of evaluations, ethical concerns and cultural safety. The roundtable provided an opportunity for participants to specifically discuss and reflect on the systemic barriers to, and enablers of, good practice in Indigenous commissioning (pages 7-9).
It also allowed the research team the chance to present the findings of the project and gather crucial feedback from a range of stakeholders. Alongside this report, a set of infographics summarising the key themes from the study have also been produced, and the development of an interactive image that sits alongside the commissioning model matrix presented in the report (page 12) is also underway.
Having concluded the roundtable and indeed the study, next steps for the research team include publishing the research findings and further dissemination. Additional work to apply the models developed as part of this study “out and beyond” health evaluations to other evaluations and service provision more broadly has also been mooted. Finally, the team will continue to work on shifting the mindsets of those responsible for commissioning evaluations in order to achieve structural change and systems transformation that embraces culturally responsive Indigenous evaluation commissioning practices.
Related Outputs:
Fredericks, B & Boulton, A (2024). Commissioning Indigenous Health Evaluations – Including Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. International Indigenous Research Conference. 12-15 November 2024, Auckland, New Zealand.
Finlay, S. M., Boulton, A., Simpson, H., Fredericks, B., Roe, Y., Judd, J., Smith, J. A., Pender, J., & Cargo, M. (2023). A scoping review of commissioning practices used in the evaluation of Indigenous health and wellbeing programs: Protocol article. Evaluation Journal of Australasia, 23(4), 220-242. https://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X231200050
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1035719X231200050
Finlay, S. M., Cargo, M., Smith, J., Judd, J., Boulton, A. Foley, D., Roe, Y., Fredericks, B. (2021). The dichotomy of commissioning Indigenous health and wellbeing program evaluations: What the Funder wants vs What the Community Needs. Health Promotion Journal of Australasia, 2021;32:149–151.
