It’s been a big first year for The Policymaker — here are our top five most-read articles for 2022.
We launched The Policymaker in 2022 on a hunch: that there was an unmet demand in the Australian public policy landscape for a publication focused on solutions while being accessible to both experts and a general audience. As the year draws to a close, our hunch has transformed into a confirmed hypothesis.
Since May, we’ve published scientists, economists, community leaders and activists, political scientists and theorists, anthropologists, students, lawyers, policy practitioners, and leaders in business and industry. We’ve been delighted to give a platform to both established and emerging voices in key policy debates, each drawing on their expertise and experience to set out an agenda for positive change. We’ve made constructive contributions to the discourse on some of the biggest public policy challenges facing Australia, including through our Jobs and Skills and Anti-slavery hubs. And all the while, we’ve seen our audience and reach grow.
To celebrate a successful first year, we’ve compiled our top five most-read articles in 2022:
By Matt Tyler
“So, what will come from 16 days of activism against men’s violence? My hope is that there will be nuanced discussions regarding the merits of different approaches to violence prevention work with men and boys. My hope is that the calls of advocates are acted upon and we place the perpetrator at the forefront of efforts to address violence, filling the blanks on statistics like 1 in ? men has perpetrated physical violence, 1 in ? men has perpetuated sexual violence. My hope is that men and boys—standing in solidarity with people of all genders—make a meaningful contribution to ending violence.”
By Pauline McGuirk, Alistair Sisson, Tom Baker, Robyn Dowling and Sophia Maalsen
“In contrast to the scale of national governments, often judged to be sluggish in response to the major societal problems of our time, the city-scale is presented as one at which innovative solutions can be rapidly developed, trialled, improved, implemented and then replicated or scaled to national or international levels.”
By Jehonathan Ben, Amanuel Elias, Rachel Sharples, Kevin Dunn, Mandy Truong, Fethi Mansouri, Nida Denson, Jessica Walton and Yin Paradies
“A national research agenda and data management plan with a monitoring framework would routinely identify gaps in research and priority areas in anti-racism policy and practice, and direct research accordingly. It would improve collaboration and data linkages and integration. Data linkage projects (connecting different sources of data in relation to the same person), are critical for increasing efficiency and maximising the utilisation of existing data.”
By Alicia Mollaun
“A child friendly budget is one that adequately addresses children’s issues, such as poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy or child protection. The child friendly budget rests heavily on the system upon which it is constructed, implemented, and evaluated. Deliberate investments in children will yield future returns by producing a healthy and productive workforce. Greater public investment in children is also likely to result in higher earnings, reduced crime and reduced welfare dependence.”
By Duncan Ivison
“We need more support targeted explicitly at bringing researchers together in multidisciplinary and multisectoral teams at different stages of development. We also need more national, thematic based initiatives aimed at tackling major challenges, developed by a bipartisan, expert commission, akin to an intergenerational roadmap for research priorities. It is time to ditch ‘science priorities’ or ‘manufacturing priorities’ and instead identify those priorities for Australia that require multidisciplinary strengths across all our disciplines. There isn’t a major challenge facing Australia and the world today that doesn’t require our humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, and health researchers to work together.”
Thank you to all our authors in 2022.
The Policymaker in 2023
Our editorial team will be taking a well-deserved break over the Christmas-New Year holiday period, but we will be back early next year. We’ve got exciting plans for The Policymaker in 2023—we can’t wait to share them with you.
As ever, we want to hear your article pitches. Read our submission guidelines and drop us a note at thepolicymaker@jmi.org.au.
See you in 2023.
Hugh Piper is Deputy Editor of The Policymaker.
Image credit: Hugh Piper
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