DVC (Research)

Professor Mark  Evans was previously:

• Director of the Democracy 2025 – strengthening democratic practice initiative at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House from 2018-2021
• Director and Professor of Governance at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra (2014-2018)
• Director of the World-wide Universities Public Policy Network (2002-5)
• Vice President of the United Kingdom’s (UK) Joint University Council for the Applied Social Sciences (1999-2004)
• Head of Politics at the University of York and Provost of Halifax College (1998-2007) in the UK
• Dean of the Faculty of Business, Government and Law at the University of Canberra (2011-12)

He was also the Australia New Zealand School of Government’s (ANZSOG) Professor of Governance from 2009 to 2014.

He has a longstanding track record both in studying and designing new forms of democratic governance including:

• The award winning European Citizens Consultation (European Union)
• Working as a Senior Advisor with the Office of the Presidency in Brazil on a new federal law on social participation (European Union)
• Co-designing the Community Development Council model in Afghanistan (World Bank)
• Designing governance strategies to address the disconnect between government and citizen (United Nations Development Program)

He has conducted similar research in every state and territory in Australia.

Mark’s work with Democracy 2025 and SBS and ABC focuses on providing a robust evidence base on Australian attitudes to trust and democracy in Australia and what works in terms of new ways of doing democracy. He is also a leading designer of executive and postgraduate education programmes for the Australian Commonwealth government with over 1000 graduates and has supervised 26 PhD students to completion.

Mark is the author, co-author or editor of 24 books in his field and was editor of the international journal Policy Studies from 2004 to 2021. His latest books (with Gerry Stoker) include Evidence based Policymaking and the Social Sciences – Methods that Matter (Policy Press, 2017) and Saving Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2022) and with Michelle Grattan From Turnbull to Morrison – Trust Divide (Melbourne University Press, 2019).

He is presently coordinating the Democratic Audit of Australia (LSE Press) for launch in 2022.