PhD Sociology UCLA; MA Sociology and MA African Studies, UCLA;
BA Cal State University Northridge; Teachers Certificate, WA.
PhD Sociology UCLA; MA Sociology and MA African Studies, UCLA; BA Cal State University Northridge; Teachers Certificate, WA.
Janette Hartz-Karp (Emeritus Professor) is a renowned practitioner, teacher and researcher in deliberative democracy (involving influential, inclusive / representative public deliberation).
Janette has designed, facilitated and researched deliberative democracy initiatives over the past two decades. Of note, in the early 2000s, for four years, Janette worked with the Western Australian Planning and Infrastructure Minister, Alannah MacTiernan, to find innovative ways to institute deliberative democracy to resolve tough transport and planning issues. Around 25 innovative, empowered public deliberation processes were implemented to address critical policy and decision-making issues.
Later, as a professor at Curtin University, Janette co-designed, jointly project managed, and co-facilitated 3 Australian Research Grants (ARC) – action research projects, each over 4 years, and each focused on deliberative democracy innovation:
1/ Australia’s first Citizens’ Parliament, which won a national award for innovation.
2/ Citizen engagement on Australia’s health system and prevention across four States.
3/ Implementing deliberative democracy to achieve a sustainable city-region in Greater Geraldton WA, integrating innovative online and face-to-face methods – which won 3 national awards and international acclaim.
Additionally, Janette has pioneered deliberative democracy initiatives, addressing sustainability challenges not only across Australia, but also in Canada, USA, India, Israel, Egypt and Denmark. Janette is an inaugural member of the international group, Democracy R&D.
Svetla is an experienced sociologist and has an extensive professional and academic experience in developing and implementing collaborative and deliberative methodologies for community and stakeholder engagement, planning and decision-making in Australia and abroad.
She has been part of the design and implementation teams for numerous deliberations at various government levels including, the City of Greater Geraldton Participatory Budgets, the Gender Equality Strategy for Victoria and the Future for Women in Football in Victoria.
Svetla’s passion is online deliberation, she has been researching digital deliberative tools for public participation and opportunities to broaden the scope of digital community engagement.
Her key strengths include design and implementation of deliberative process and public participation in decision-making, and social research design and methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative evaluation.
B Eng, M (Sustainability), PhD Candidate (deliberative democracy)
Rob graduated with an Engineering degree from the University of Western Australia and pursued a career in research and development starting at the Centre for Water Research and later at two technology start-ups, one of them he was a co-director of.
He worked as the Sustainability Facilitator for the Western Australian Local Government Association for six years where he was responsible for assisting Local Governments on their journey toward greater sustainability.
Rob holds a Masters of Sustainability and was been part of the design and implementation teams for numerous community engagements at various government levels including the Australian Citizens Parliament, City of Greater Geraldton Participatory Budgets, and the Designing our City Enquiry by Design.
Currently he is using the innovative Participatory Budgeting panels on 100% of the municipal budget as the subject of his doctoral research into trust in government.
Margaret is Co-Director of Empowering Participation and an Associate of Murdoch University’s Centre for Responsible Citizenship and Sustainability (CRCS). She has a particular focus on the role of collaborative, participatory processes in the development of sustainability policy and strategy development and implementation.
Margaret was formerly a lecturer and researcher at Curtin University’s Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute and Murdoch University’s School of Sustainability; a sustainability consultant with HAC Consulting; Principal Policy Adviser for Sustainability for the WA Minister for Planning and Infrastructure; and Senior Policy Adviser for Climate Change and Environment for the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Margaret’s key areas of expertise include: sustainability policy; collaborative governance; urban and regional planning; low carbon living; integrated land use and transport planning; sustainable agriculture; community and regional development; business strategies for sustainability; and strategic planning.
We love online technology – because the internet can lower the barriers to participation, scale out and help us do our job better.
