This report presents finding from the first stage of the multi year, Planning Inclusive Communities Research Project. 97 participants, aged 9 to 92 years of age, shared their thoughts, experiences, and ideas of what makes communities inclusive, their current experiences of living in their communities...

The Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs has published this report on its inquiry into community safety, support services and job opportunities in the Northern Territory. The report makes several recommendations to the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments in the wake...

This evaluation report was prepared by the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) for Community Mental Health Australia (CMHA), and presents evaluation findings related to the ACDC Project’s effectiveness and impact on participants and communities.

This report presents preliminary findings from data collected during the Assisting Communities through Direct Connection (ACDC) Project – a proactive outreach initiative that utilised door-knocking to initiate conversations about mental health across 21 Australian communities.

Following a rigorous and inspiring 12-month co-design journey, Australia has a new shared agenda for a reimagined future for volunteering. This strategy document, co-created by stakeholders from across the volunteering ecosystem, provides a blueprint for the next ten years that will enable volunteering in Australia...

This committee report recommends that the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022 be passed, if amendments are made to strengthen enfranchisement and participation in the referendum, particularly of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and clear, factual and impartial information is made accessible to all voters.

The Northern Territory Government, in partnership with Lhere Artepe, the Alice Springs Town Council and the Chamber of Commerce are implementing a range of measures to support the community and improve social outcomes. This response focuses on three key areas to improve safety, support stronger...

This draft report poses recommendations and key questions to shape a more community-focused, citizen-centred local governance system in New Zealand. Submissions and feedback to shape the final report are open until 28 February 2023.

Hybrid engagement integrates real-time digital and in-person activities to allow participants greater choice and flexibility to participate in an engagement process. This resource offers some guidance on how to effectively conduct hybrid engagement.

These guidelines walk the reader through ten steps to design, plan and implement a citizen participation process, and details seven different methods that can be used to involve citizens in policy-making. To illustrate these methods, the OECD gathered good practice examples through an open call.

This working paper presents a range of practices and lessons learned about accessible and inclusive public communication in OECD member and partner countries, with a particular focus on persons with a disability.

This report sets out the need for democratic innovations and digital participation tools to move beyond one-off pilots toward more embedded and inclusive systems of decision-making.

This issues paper considers the question of how and when to finalise the design of the model of a First Nations voice to the Australian Parliament.

In 2021, the Australian government announced the development of a National Strategy for Volunteering, with the design of this strategy being led by Volunteering Australia. The ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods is undertaking research to support the development of the strategy, with this...

This paper explores a series of case studies that illustrate community governance models that started with a community led vision for complex green infrastructure projects.

This study provides illustration of the cognitive, affective and behavioral components of 'sense of place' through three case studies from Victoria.

This report is an umbrella evidence review to identify which interventions and supports improve social and community participation for adults on the autism spectrum or who have intellectual disability or psychosocial disability.

This report presents research findings from the Community Participation Research Project in the context of understanding the barriers and enablers to community participation within the broader disability ecosystem.

From July 2020-December 2021, the European Commission and the OECD partnered to explore how five authorities across Europe could place citizens at the centre of their investment decisions. This report summarises lessons learned throughout this project and, particularly, the results of applying innovative citizen participation...

This research largely took a ‘citizen-eye’ view to the question of how authority is understood, and how citizens, especially marginalised groups, make claims, express grievances, seek to have their voices heard and hold authorities to account.

This research paper examines Australia’s foreign interference debate and Beijing’s reach in supporting Chinese-Australian community organisations.

This document reviews the state of current knowledge on the role of community assets in supporting community resilience, recovery and wellbeing, focusing on disaster recovery and resilience building processes. It forms part of the 'Community resilience, wellbeing and recovery project'.

Public discussion of speech expressing contempt for women has intensified in Australia in recent times. This policy brief provides an overview of this pressing policy challenge, focussing on how such speech represents a crisis of democracy through its silencing of women and limiting of their...

This report argues that the government must do more to involve the public in designing policies to help the United Kingdom transition to a zero-carbon economy. The report sets out recommendations for when and how policy makers should engage with citizens and residents.

This report outlines the findings from a longitudinal study of how survivors fared during the 12 months immediately after the fires decimated communities in Victoria’s East Gippsland Region. The report was prepared for Australia’s national energy consumer advocate, Energy Consumers Australia.