APS200 project – the place of science in policy development in the public service

The report aims to achieve better government outcomes through facilitating the effective use of scientific input in policy development in the public service. The Australian Public Service (APS) is increasingly tasked with solving complex policy problems that require significant input from science in order to address them fully and appropriately. Policy making within the APS needs to be based on a rigorous, evidence‐based approach that routinely and systematically draws upon science as a key element. The Australian Government’s investment in science, research and innovation capacity supports a long‐term vision to address national challenges and open up new opportunities. This investment is also significant, with the Commonwealth providing $8.9 billion to support science, research and innovation in 2012‐13. There is an opportunity to harness this investment to address complex societal challenges, by ensuring that scientific research and advice is more effectively incorporated in the development of evidence‐based policy. There is an opportunity for policy makers to make better use of the science capacity provided by our science institutions, including publicly funded research agencies and other science agencies, universities, Cooperative Research Centres and Medical Research Institutes. There is also an opportunity to capitalise on the willingness of scientists to contribute their research results to the policy making process

DXC Dandelion Program: 2017 in Review

[Excerpt] The Dandelion Program is an initiative to build valuable Information Technology, life, and executive functioning skills to help establish careers for people on the autism spectrum. The implementation and assessment of Dandelion pods (or ‘groups’) concentrates on identifying and supporting individuals on the autism spectrum with potential to excel in testing, data science, and cyber security roles. The Dandelion Program grew rapidly in 2017, and this report will cover its most significant developments throughout the year

National security: A propositional study to develop resilience indicators as an aid to personnel vetting

Within the National Security domain there is a convergence of security responsibility across the national security agencies, law enforcement and private security sectors. The sensitivity of this environment requires individuals operating in the domain to be honest, trustworthy and loyal. Personnel vetting is a formal process used to determine an individual’s suitability for access to this domain. Notwithstanding this process, significant breaches of trust, security, and corruption still occur. In psychology, resilience is a well researched phenomenon that is considered a multidimensional construct where individual attributes, family aspects and social environment interact in aiding individuals to deal with vulnerability. There are many understandings and definitions of resilience based on theorists’ different perspectives; however, most agree that resilience is represented by a minimum of two aspects. The first is adversity and second, how the individual deals with adversity that demonstrates situational adaptation in a positive manner. The study is a work in progress and proposes the use of a recently developed Lifespan Resilience Scale. This scale will use resilience markers as an aid to National Security by providing vetting agencies with an additional tool for proactive intervention. The Lifespan Resilience Scale is currently undergoing reliability and validity testing within a student population. Once validated within this population, the scale will be adjusted and tested within the vetting environment using cross validated cohorts and expert opinion. Such a tool will assist National Security through better personnel risk management

DXC Dandelion Program: 2018 in Review

[Excerpt] 2018 was another very successful year for the DXC Dandelion Program. DXC established a number of new, critical partnerships that continue to propel autism at work programs to the forefront of workplace inclusion. This has resulted in the program growing significantly throughout the year. DXC has now successfully established seven teams across four states in Australia, employing over 80 people on the autism spectrum

Skills for multiagency responses to international crises

Overview Australian responses to international, complex emergencies and humanitarian crises, generated by natural disaster, conflicts or incidents, demand the coordinated responses of multiple civil-military-police actors and agencies. A scoping study of Australian government agency training needs in the latter half of 2013 indicated that stakeholder agencies continue to have difficulty in identifying and developing individual skills to enable people to operate effectively in a high-pressure crisis environment that requires an integrated civil-military-police response. Agencies highlighted the need to develop a ‘whole-of-government’ set of skills for civil-military-police interaction that would complement agency specific skills. In 2015, the Australian Civil-Military Centre (ACMC) commissioned Sustineo to undertake a project to address this gap. This report, based on Sustineo’s research and consultations, goes some way to identifying the skills needed for effective civil-military-police interaction. However, the list is not exhaustive. In fact, the report highlights the difficulty of articulating a specific set of multiagency, cross-cutting skills for civil-military-police interaction. Practitioners gave consistent advice that specific skills were less important than other factors in successful civil-military-police interaction. Skills and training are only one component of success. The factors that can facilitate and enhance civil-military-police interaction and the strategies required to address those factors are much broader. The report highlights some of these broader factors and how they interrelate. It identifies the interdependence of individual knowledge, skills and attributes, the value of building relationships, the importance of tolerance and understandings of difference and the need for trust and credibility. The report concludes that an individual’s ability to operate effectively in a civil-military-police environment is developed both prior to and during a mission or deployment and relates more to the type of person and their relationships than to specific skills. Generic skills and attributes for effective civil-military-police interaction Common and shared goals Situational awareness Understanding of whole-of-government Personal attributes such as flexibility, resilience and working in a team Professional skills, such as negotiation, mediation, conflict management and partnership brokering Existing professional relationships and networks Trust Self-awareness (and social and emotional intelligence) Tolerance of diversity (including of organisational differences and cultural diversity). The report identifies considerations for developing people for deployments and it is hoped that these will inform agencies’ training and development strategies. The findings support the ongoing work that the ACMC is undertaking to develop an Australian Government Preparedness Framework (the Framework). The Framework will draw together several streams of work that are interrelated, including this report, to further build Australia’s whole-of-government effectiveness in responding to disasters and complex emergencies overseas

Go Back to the Beginning: Career Development and the Challenges of Transitioning From the Military to Civilian Employment

This chapter examines the transition challenges facing military personnel to moving to civilian employment, a major issue for nations like the USA that have large armed forces. For such personnel, they seek to establish a career after a period of service and often without the credentials required for existing or future job vacancies. This chapter discusses the challenges of career transition from military to civilian employment, largely in the context of the US-based literature. The chapter proceeds to outline the range of obstacles to transition and then considers remedial measures to support transition ranging from pre transition to post transition support programs

China country strategy

This strategy outlines a vision of where Australia\u27s relationship with China should be in 2025 and how Australia should get there. China’s rise to the top of the global economic and political order is defining the 21st century. By 2025, China is set to be the world’s largest economy. The Chinese economy’s size and scale, combined with robust growth, will consistently make China the largest contributor to global and Asian economic growth leading up to 2025. How China manages its transformation from exportand investment-led development to a consumption and innovation-driven economy will determine the shape of the global economic system in the coming decades

Benefits of Employing People with Autism: The Dandelion Employment Program

This report identifies benefits of the Dandelion Employment Program, an initiative by DXC Technology in collaboration with the Australian Government Department of Human Services, Department of Defence, and Department of Immigration and Border Protection aimed at increasing employment opportunities for people with autism

Science advice to governments: diverse systems, common challenges

This briefing paper formed the basis of discussions at the 'Science Advice to Governments' summit, which took place in Auckland, New Zealand from 28-29 August 2014, and was attended by science advisors and policymakers from 48 countries

Defence science and innovation: an affordable strategic advantage

Overview: Australia’s neighbours in the Asia–Pacific are building high-quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics research capacities and infrastructure. As a consequence, Australia’s technological advantage in the defence domain is eroding. To recover that advantage, our policy should be to make the most of the knowledge, capability and capacity in Australia’s civilian science and innovation sector.  This special report analyses current and prospective Australian science, industry and defence science and innovation policy