About the webinar

We live in a world of increasing complexity, where the decisions we make today can have far-reaching consequences for our communities and the environment. Whether it's a new policy, a development project, or a strategic plan, the success of these initiatives often hinges on one crucial factor: meaningful and effective engagement.

Public participation (also referred to as community engagement) is a cornerstone of impact assessment (IA) and planning approvals processes. However, ongoing challenges to meaningful engagement persist, including:

• the complexity of the regulatory environment,
• navigating uncertainty in impact assessment of policies, plans, programmes or projects, and
• low levels of public trust in organisations involved in these endeavours, the media, and governance processes[1].

This webinar explores 13 foundational, essential and contextual elements that combine to form meaningful engagement in IA. As a taster for a longer online course offering EIANZ is making for the first time – the webinar draws on the recent Handbook of Public Participation in Impact Assessment, the tenth in the Research Handbooks on Impact Assessment series.

In this webinar co-editor of the Handbook, Tanya Burdett, will be joined by chapter authors presenting ‘vignettes’ of good practice including:

• Max Hardy, Max Hardy Consulting | Collaboration and co-design
• Robyn Cochrane, Cochrane Research Solutions | Data sharing and the emerging role of digital participatory platforms
• Angus Morrison-Saunders, Edith Cowan University | Effective engagement in IA follow up
• Nivek Thompson, Deliberately engaging | Deliberative approaches

This webinar is a precursor to online training which will begin in September, where partcipants will apply engagement frameworks, draw on industry standards (including International Association for Impact Assessment, International Association for Public Participation, and EIANZ policies and ethics), and apply these to real world case studies. To start with, join us for this lunch time webinar for an insight into what makes for meaningful community engagement in impact assessment and planning approvals processes.

Register now and secure your spot for this transformative webinar!

![1] The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer suggests 61% have moderate or higher sense of grievance, with impacts on trust; and there are similarly low levels of trust in the emerging role of AI according to a recent KPMG / MelbUni study on trust, attitudes and AI use here

This event will run off Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) and will run for 1 hour. The webinar will be recorded and a link to the webinar will be sent to all registered attendees in the days after the webinar.

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