Next Generation Engagement, led by co-founders Professor Sara Bice and Kirsty O’Connell, operates globally from bases in Australia and the United Kingdom. Our team of engagement leaders and social researchers has experience across more than $100B in infrastructure selection, planning and delivery and includes some of world’s foremost experts on social licence to operate in the infrastructure and energy sectors.
Co-Founder and Director: Kirsty O’Connell
Kirsty O’Connell leads Next Generation Engagement and acts as project manager for all key assignments. Kirsty has successfully led communication and engagement for more than $30 billion in transformational multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects, holds an MBA with majors in finance, sustainability and innovation gained in Australia, the UK and France, is a Council Member of the Environmental Defenders Office and is the Community Champion for the Hunter Regional Energy Accord. Kirsty is also the co-founder of the Institute for Infrastructure in Society where she lends her considerable industry experience to ensure industry concerns and aspirations stay at the heart of I2S research.
Co-Founder and Director: Professor Sara Bice
Leading social license expert, Sara Bice, is co-founder and director of Next Generation Engagement and lends her considerable research expertise to inform the methodology for all Next Generation Engagement projects and the content for our Executive Education courses.
She is Professor and Vice-Chancellor’s Futures Scheme Senior Fellow at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, the number one public policy school in the Asia Pacific. Sara is a co-founder of the Institute for Infrastructure in Society, where she leads the Next Generation Engagement research program, Australia’s largest study into community engagement in infrastructure, to date. She is a past President of the International Association for Impact Assessment (2018-2019), the world’s leading organisation for impact assessment practitioners, researchers and clients, representing almost 7,000 members in 120 different countries. She is also Professor (Special International Guest) at the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing. Sara is an award-winning author and her latest co-edited book, Public Policy in the Asian Century is available from Palgrave Macmillan. She loves to surf, has been known to swim with sharks and never met a gelato she didn’t like.
Senior Advisor: Dr Kirsty Jones
Dr Kirsty Jones offers leading expertise in research engagement and implementation to support policy and practice impact. She has devoted most of her career to building the capacity of research leaders to incorporate engagement into their research projects and has worked across industry and government to support the integration of research into teams and organisational processes and cultures. Dr Jones’ work is at the forefront of research integration and implementation. Her leadership and capacity to deploy a variety of novel methods, including co- design, to improve research use, speak to her creativity and ability to adapt research to meet the needs of various audiences. Her work in this area demonstrates the strong interconnection between the research innovations she advances and their capacity to inform major public policy. Dr Jones currently serves as the Next Generation Engagement Research Integration Lead, supporting industry and government to apply the ANU’s Institute for Infrastructure in Society’s research, to optimize the benefits for projects and communities.