Your occasional update on our network, upcoming events, professional development and the world of impact evaluation
Dear IEPN members,
A warm welcome to our new members. In the lead up to the first IEPN conference more than 200 people joined the network. If this is the first time you have received our newsletter, you’ll find network updates, professional development opportunities, and links to readings on impact evaluation.
The 2026 conference was a hit. 295 people joined throughout the day. Thank you to the speakers and to everyone who asked engaging questions. In the coming weeks, the secretariat will begin planning for 2027 and we hope to build on the success of the conference. We love to hear from members, please drop us an email (evaluation@treasury.gov.au) if you have feedback, questions or ideas that can help us to improve the network.
Our regular seminar series continued this month with a presentation from Professor Adrian Barnett on using lotteries to fund research. Like a true impact evaluator, Adrian sees every lottery as the perfect opportunity to measure impact. You can watch the recording from Adrian’s session and the video from the conference in the IEPN teams Group. Read on for details.
We have two more seminars booked before the end of the year. In October we will welcome Professor Jess Kasza and Dr Kristen Sobeck joins us in November. See you there!
Yours in impactful impact evaluation,
The IEPN Secretariat
Network Update
New network membership form
It’s easier to join the network now. We have a new membership form, accessible from the IEPN web page. If you know people who care about impact evaluation, share the membership form with them. Anyone can join. You can also use this form to remove yourself from the mailing list or change your details.
Thanks to the IT team at AERO who created this form.
Missed the conference? Watch the recording
The full recording of the IEPN conference is now available to members in the IEPN Teams Group. We also have recordings of past seminars there ready to view. If you don’t have access to the Teams group, you can use the membership form to add yourself.
Training and Professional Development
Upcoming Event: Evidence in Action
Hosted by the Australian Centre for Evaluation (ACE) and the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA), this event will bring together senior leaders, policymakers, practitioners and researchers to explore how evaluation and behavioural insights can contribute to better public policy.
Date: Thursday, 5 November 2026
Time: 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm
Location: Canberra and online
Cost: Free
Find out more and register here
The event will showcase practical lessons from across government alongside Australian and international perspectives on using evidence to inform policy design, implementation and decision‑making.
Job Opportunity: Lead evaluation projects at the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service
The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water are seeking a technical evaluation specialist. This Senior Project Officer Role will work within the National Parks and Wildlife Service leading high‑profile evaluation projects that influence the way services are delivered across the organisation.
For details read the full job listing
Reading and Links
If you find this reading list interesting or you would like to submit something for the next edition, please contact us at evaluation@treasury.gov.au.
Advice on involving subjects in your research: Biju Rao describes the different between what’s measurable and what’s important in a piece titled Why economists don’t listen. He gives compelling examples and practical advice to help economists better understand the subjects of their research.
Principles for doing power calculations: David McKenzie from Development Impact presents a practical framework to help you approach power calculations. Not how to do them, but how to do them well.
Testing for attrition: In this blog post Jacobus Cilliers summarises a new paper by Ghanem, Hirschleifer and Ortiz‑Becerra.You are not testing for attrition correctly explains why the most common approaches to testing if attrition is random are not useful. Fortunately, there is a better way and Cilliers explains how to do it.
Sensitivity Analysis: Carlos Cinelli and Chad Hazlett present new tools for sensitivity analysis that can help us to better understand how unobserved confounders could be affecting our results.