Dr. Hayley Henderson is a Senior Lecturer at the Crawford School of Public Policy, where she teaches urban policy in the Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Administration programs. Her urban policy elective, Public Policy in Cities, equips students with the principles and methods needed to analyse and plan to redress urban challenges, emphasising equitable and sustainable development. She is the Director of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility at the Crawford School.

Hayley is passionate about conducting engaged research with practitioners to help foster equitable and resilient cities. As a Senior Researcher within the Institute for Infrastructure in Society (I2S), she focuses on the social dimensions of urban policymaking and major projects in cities. Her research explores the social benefits and risks of urban policies and projects, as well as the factors and frameworks that enable effective collaboration. While her primary research focuses on Australian cities, she also conducts studies in Argentinean cities and engages in comparative research involving urban contexts across South America, Europe, and North America. Her main research work includes:

1. Since 2015, Hayley has been researching the collaborative urban governance of revitalisation programs within Australia's superdiverse urban centres. Her work began during her PhD and then with a case study of Revitalising Central Dandenong (Melbourne), led by Professor Helen Sullivan, as part of an international comparison of eight cities examining the impacts of austerity on urban governance (funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council). Since then, she has expanded her research to explore collaboration and public policy across various fields, including environmental management. She is an Associate Editor of the international Collaborative Governance Database and worked with scholars involved in that project to develop a theoretical framework for understanding inclusion in collaborative governance arrangements (Ansell et al., 2020). She is currently involved in two applied projects focused on urban revitalisation in Melbourne's superdiverse suburban centres, Footscray and Dandenong. In 2024, she joined the Future Footscray steering committee and commenced a partnership with the City of Greater Dandenong to assess the state of revitalisation and opportunities for collaborative governance in future.

2. Hayley co-founded Superdiversity Research Australia in 2024 and together with colleagues from ANU, RMIT and SGS Economics and Planning, works towards defining and measuring population superdiversity across Australia in ways that seek to influence nuanced debates and policymaking. In 2023, Hayley and co-authors were awarded the Peter Harrison Memorial Prize during the State of Australasian Cities Conference for their research on Expanding Superdiversity in Australian Cities and Regional Towns.

3. She is co-Chief Investigator together with Professor Sara Bice and Professor Helen Sullivan, researching social risk identification, assessment and management on major infrastructure projects supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant (GA236597 2022-25). By working with experts and surveying communities' perceptions of risks, the team has developed a range of frameworks and tools aimed at supporting robust and systematic social risk management of major infrastructure, including: a definition of social risk; a maturity model to understand current approaches to social risk management across Australia; as well as an evidence-based tool to identify and assess social risk factors relating to major infrastructure in Australia. 

4. Hayley is Co-Chief Investigator with Professor Sara Bice on a project as part of the ANZSOG Research Model Program on social licence for major policy reform (2024-2025). The research aims to better comprehend and inform how the Australian public sector can build capacity and sustain a social licence for major reforms. Social licence is defined as the level of acceptance of a policy or initiative within a defined community. Developing and maintaining a social licence for major policy reform is both vital and challenging in contemporary Australia for a range of reasons. This study responds to the need to quicken the pace and expand the scope of major policy reform in Australia to effectively navigate and respond to critical issues, like climate change, while building with public citizen buy-in.

5. Finally, Hayley conducts research relating to the social dimensions and governance arrangements for uptake of Nature-based Solutions, including Blue Green Infrastructure, as part of sustainable urban waterway management and water infrastructure planning. She was the Coordinator of the Buenos Aires Life Lab of CONEXUS program (funded through European Union Horizon 2020-2024) during 2020 and 2021, where she worked with policy makers, non-profit representatives, and researchers in co-creating Nature-based Solutions (NbS). Funded through a grant by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Hayley continues to research the potential benefits and costs of upscaling Blue Green Infrastructure in Argentina (2024-2025). Hayley also regularly conducts research consultancies with multilateral agencies (e.g. UNEP, World Bank) that focus on designing NbS, in particular Blue Green Infrastructure solutions to traditional urban problems, including wetland management, improved social housing and informal settlement upgrading and parks design.

• Social risk and social benefits of urban policy and projects.
• Social license to operate.
• Superdiversity.
• Collaborative governance.
• Interjurisdictional dynamics in federal systems.
• The municipal level in urban planning.
• Informality
• Comparative urbanism (focus on Australia and Argentina).

Most common approach: case study

Methods of data collection:

• Delphi technique
• Focus groups (in person, online)
• Interviews
• Participant observation
• Document analysis, including policy.
• Basic statistical and spatial analysis.