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The I2S Team is just back from the 43rd Annual International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) conference in Dublin, Ireland. Four days, 1,200 delegates, nine thematic streams, 115 sessions, one traditional Irish band and just a few Guinesses later, and we’ve got the top eight take-aways. These cover the following topics:

1. Community participation and procedural fairness
2. Social inclusion
3. Social risk management
4.Indigenous and First Nations Peoples’ rights and participation
5. Getting contracting right
6. Getting comfortable with ‘decline’ scenarios 
7. Critical minerals and responsible mining are critical
8. Land acquisition, displacement and resettlement.

Ever wondered how to benchmark your engagement practice? Or how we systematically assess “fluffy” or “fuzzy” concepts like relationship-building processes?

I2S Research Fellow Dr Ruth O’Connor shared her latest research findings on the challenges and opportunities of a Scorecard for assessing and improving infrastructure engagement at the IAIA24 session, ‘Ensuring just transformation of infrastructure projects’. 

The annual State of Infrastructure and Engagement Survey delivers insights about how stakeholder pressure, social licence, social risk and community engagement are influencing Australia’s infrastructure development. Each year the State of Infrastructure and Engagement Project tracks infrastructure sector professionals’ experiences of a range of issues, including project status and budgets and the factors they identify as most influential to project outcomes. The survey also takes a deep dive into unique, priority issues each year. This year’s deep dive focuses on:

Social inclusion social value community fatigue.

Experts agree: Infrastructure investment should deliver social value and support social inclusion but it’s not achieving its potential.

The 6th Annual State of Infrastructure and Engagement Report covers 2022-2023. It reveals an industry …Read More

Each year, the I2S team holds an annual Intentional Design Days where we consolidate and integrate our research findings from the previous year to identify emerging themes, nail key insights and pinpoint the next major research questions to address.

What emerged this year?

Social value, early engagement and moving ‘beyond acceptance’.

I2S Co-Founder and Director Professor Sara Bice shares her early thoughts on what ‘beyond acceptance’ is and why it’s time for major infrastructure to go there.

I2S Research Fellow Dr Ruth O’Connor’s latest publication is hot off the presses and full of great advice on how to communicate climate change research more effectively to the public. Read on for the quick key insights to support your efforts: “The value of public science events: insights from three years of communicating climate change research.”

Social cohesion in Australia is reported as being at an all time low. Why should we care?

I2S Co-Founder and Director Professor Sara Bice gives three reasons…

I2S Co-Founders Sara Bice and Kirsty O’Connell were on hand at IAP2 2023 to share insights from the 6th Annual State of Infrastructure and Engagement. Here’s what we know about social inclusion and infrastructure, in four charts…

Nicola Adams, Principal – Engagement and Social Impact, bd infrastructure, shares her ‘ah-ha’ moments from our recent IAP2 Session with I2S Co-Founders Sara Bice and Kirsty O’Connell.

By Special Guest Contributor Kee Li, Community Engagement Manager, Regional Programs – Government, Stakeholder and Community Engagement, Sydney Water, I2S IEE Standards Partner*

This year’s #iap2conference2023 was another success. Many insights and constructive discussions were shared in the past three days. Here are some of my highlights: