Every year, talented Australians from all walks of life are awarded Churchill Fellowships to travel overseas and investigate inspiring and best practices that could benefit Australian communities. Through their travels, Churchill Fellows access and exchange knowledge and experiences with industry and community leaders from around the world who have insights to offer in relation to the Fellows’ areas of focus. They also explore, first hand, international policy development and implementation, reviewing what has been successfully achieved in other countries and most importantly how it might be applied within Australia. Policy practitioners and decision-makers could benefit from drawing on such lessons and adapting them to the local context, as well as reducing the risk of unknown consequences when designing and implementing new policy for Australia.

Most Churchill Fellows, however, are not policy experts nor come from a background of public policy. With that in mind, the Policy Impact Program was developed by the Centre for Policy Futures at the University of Queensland and the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust with the intent to help Churchill Fellows draw upon their knowledge in such a way to best inform policy reform. The Policy Impact Program and its flagship publication, Policy Futures: A Reform Agenda, combines some of the best of the Churchill Fellows’ ideas and insights with the policy and governance expertise of the Centre for Policy Futures.

The Churchill Fellows accepted into the Policy Impact Program were chosen by a Selection Committee of highly esteemed members, following a rigorous application process. The articles featuring in this publication were written by the Fellows while participating in the program, and have been independently peer reviewed by academics, policymakers and/or expert practitioners in their relevant fields.