Our Capabilities

We are dedicated to tackling complex policy challenges and helping shape effective, evidence‑informed solutions. Our work deepens understanding of the major issues affecting communities and supports targeted action that leads to meaningful, lasting outcomes.

We collaborate with local, national and international governments, industries, community organisations, and partners of all sizes - from small agencies to large consortiums. Our team has extensive experience delivering impactful research through initiatives such as ARC Linkage Grants and Cooperative Research Centres, as well as tailored projects with individual organisations.

Across all our partnerships, our research has helped inform policy development, guide decision‑making, and improve real‑world practice.

How We Work

We work collaboratively to:

Scan the horizon for emerging drivers of change which may disrupt an organisation, its supply chain, and its operating environment
Develop scenarios to support more robust decision-making
Evaluate social, environmental and economic issues influencing policy and regulation
Apply design methods to make sense of, and reframe contested issues to support more creative and innovative solutions
Help decision-makers and stakeholders to identify critical uncertainties and develop probable and preferred futures
Facilitate interdisciplinary and cross-sector engagement with diverse stakeholders in complex and contested issues
Map an organisation's pathways to impact to identify critical barriers and opportunities for success
Develop decision support tools, frameworks and scenarios to build long-term capacity in systems, design and futures thinking throughout teams and organisation

Contact

Policy Design

We support government, industry and civil society to address complex challenges by applying leading approaches from systems, design and futures thinking. Policymakers and practitioners face an increasingly complex world with changes that are disrupting society, the environment and business practices. How we navigate these changes can mean the difference between impactful outcomes, and failure.

Our strategic research applies tried and tested methods to help decision-makers navigate this complexity and design more effective initiatives. Our projects draw on the extensive disciplinary expertise that UQ has in areas such as ethics, philosophy, and decision science.

Governance

Our researchers bring significant interdisciplinary expertise in the design, analysis, and evaluation of governance arrangements across key policy domains, including climate change mitigation and adaptation, marine conservation, water and natural resource management, social services and employment systems, and food justice. This experience enables us to provide government partners with robust assessments of governance performance, identify opportunities to strengthen institutional settings, and support the development of responsive, equitable and future‑focused policy frameworks.

Key impacts

Advised on governance, water quality programs and human-dimensions components of the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan
Strengthened local governance and adaptive capacity for integrated catchment management in Southern Bahia, Brazil in response to climate change
Delivered the framework and assessment of the NSW Richmond River Catchment Governance
Informed policy processes for UNEP, FAO, IPBES, the IPCC and the UK Parliament
Produced an OECD report on safety culture translated behavioural insights into frameworks for global regulators

Evaluation

We have extensive evaluation expertise across major programs in agriculture, the blue economy, climate adaptation, work futures and food security. We design and deliver rigorous reviews using established frameworks, including Design-Activity-Impact models, Theory of Change, Logical Framework Analysis, MERL frameworks, and a range of impact assessment methodologies. With a proven ability to operate in complex stakeholder environments and deliver high‑quality findings under tight timeframes, we integrate social and behavioural insights to strengthen evaluation design, implementation, and communication. Our evaluations have directly shaped policy and investment decisions across Australia, the Indo-Pacific, and beyond, demonstrating our commitment to producing evidence that is both actionable and meaningful for partners and communities.

Key impacts

Regulatory evaluations for Great Barrier Reef restoration initiatives
Evaluated collaborative management frameworks for freshwater in Australasia and place-based collaborative freshwater management in the Mary River catchment
Co-design and development of a Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning frameworks (MERL) baseline for a heritage water project in Cambodia
Developed one of the first vulnerability and adaptation assessment guidebooks for the Pacific, applied in 50 initiatives across 15 countries
Conducted a landmark cross-country evaluation that identified four optimisation points for scaling locally led resilience project evaluations in Myanmar, Cambodia, Philippines, Fiji and Tonga

Engagement

We work closely with partner organisations and contribute to national and international committees, advisory groups and leading academic journals. Through these networks, we build capability and help organisations apply their expertise in new and impactful ways.

Our team has extensive experience collaborating with councils, industry, Traditional Owners and community groups across Queensland and Australia. We also have long‑standing relationships with development partners, regional organisations, national governments, civil society and NGOs across the Indo‑Pacific, enabling effective co‑design, validation and long‑term engagement.

We build these relationships around the following principles:

Collaboration - co-designing solutions that address cross-sector and community needs
Inclusion - actively ensuring that marginalised groups are not left behind and that our work fully aligns with GEDSI principles and embeds Indigenous knowledge
Cross-cultural competence - demonstrated through long-term and short-term projects across Australia and the Indo-Pacific
Transparency - committing to transparent research practices, including clear documentation and open communication of methods and findings
Accountability - being responsive and accountable in establishing genuine and respectful partnerships