Dr Hayley Henderson
Dr Hayley Henderson is Senior Lecturer at the Crawford School of Public Policy and teaches urban policy in the Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Administration. The urban policy elective, Public Policy in Cities, focuses on principles and methods for analysing and addressing problems in cities related to equitable and sustainable development.
Hayley is passionate about working with partners in practice to develop equitable and resilient cities. Hayley is Senior Researcher within the Institute for Infrastructure in Society (I2), where she works with colleagues on the social dimensions of infrastructure planning as well as urban policymaking and delivery. Specifically, her research is related to the social benefits and risks of urban policies and projects, as well as the institutional and governance settings that enables collaboration between stakeholders in urban governance. Hayley’s research is primarily focused on Australian and Argentine cities, though she also conducts comparative studies that involve other South American, European and North American cities.
Research Interest
Interests:
- 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 (comparative 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.
Hayley is presently working on four main research projects.
- She is co-Chief Investigator together with Professor Sara Bice on a research project relating to social risk identification, assessment and management on major projects support by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant (GA236597). 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 (with four stages from social risk as business and reputational risk to more integrated understandings linked to resilience and equity); as well as an evidence-based tool to identify and assess social risk factors relating to major infrastructure in Australia. This work connects to and complements other research underway within I2S, including on standards of community engagement, social license to operate, and social value framing.
- Hayley also conducts research relating to public policy and social license to operate.
- Since 2015, Hayley has researched collaborative urban governance of revitalisation programs in Australia's superdiverse urban centres: Initially, she worked on a case study led by Professor Helen Sullivan as part of an in international comparison of eight cities on the influences of austerity on urban governance (this project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, United Kingdom).
The research underscored the vital role of robust local government policymaking to accompany state-based renewal programmes; the value of both formal and informal work across policy domains and between jurisdictions; the importance of ongoing, place-based community engagement and, how actors from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities facilitated an expanded sense of pluralism in collaborative settings. In turn, some of these settings, including superdiversity, proved fruitful for problem-solving and bottom-up place-making to address urban decline. A detailed Research Briefing on the main findings from the Central Dandenong case study was published, including lessons for public policy, and summarised in short pieces for The Conversation and Policy Forum. This research contributed to the following publications:
- Ansell, C., Doberstein, C., Henderson, H., Siddiki, S., & `t Hart, P. (2020). Understanding inclusion in collaborative governance: a mixed methods approach Policy and Society, 39:4, 570-591, DOI: 10.1080/14494035.2020.1785726
- Davies, J., Blanco, I., Bua., A., Chorianopoulos, I., Cortina-Oriol, M., Feandeiro, A., Gaynor, N., Gleeson, B., Griggs, S., Hamel, P., Henderson, H., Howarth, D., Keil, R., Pill, M., Salazar, Y., & Sullivan, H. (2022). New Developments in Urban Governance: Rethinking Collaboration in the Age of Austerity. Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press
- Henderson, H., Sullivan., S. & Gleeson, B. (2020). Variations on a collaborative theme: Conservatism, pluralism, and place-based urban policy in Central Dandenong, Melbourne. Journal of Urban Affairs, 42:1, 125-142, DOI: 10.1080/07352166.2018.1516509
As an extension to this project, more recently Hayley has worked in collaboration with SGS Economics & Planning to identify Australia’s other stable, superdiverse urban centres. The research evaluated the risk of gentrification facing highly diverse urban centres and considers possible wellbeing impacts from relocation. The direction of this project is to study the role and impact of “an ethic of cultural pluralism” in collaborative governance of urban revitalisation across Australia’s superdiverse urban centres.
4. Finally, Hayley conducts research in Argentina relating to sustainable and equitable urban waterway management and water infrastructure planning and delivery. In particular, as the Coordinator of the Buenos Aires Life Lab of CONEXUS program (funded through European Union Horizon 2020-2024) during 2020 and 2021, she worked with policy makers, non-profit representatives, and researchers in co-creating Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to support the uptake of sustainable urbanisation practices in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She continues to play a role in this project, examining governance practices and valuation techniques of NbS as part of the comparative study with Life Labs in Bogotá (Colombia), São Paulo (Brazil), Santiago (Chile), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Lisbon (Portugal), Barcelona (Spain) and Turin (Italy). Based on a pilot project (Sustainable Urban Drainage System in the Municipaliy of San Martin) and 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) in Argentina 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.
Detailed findings this research on sustainable urban infrastructure and the challenges and opportunities for governing a transition away from traditional approaches towards NbS include:
- Henderson, H., Bush, J. & Kozak, D. (2022 - forthcoming). Mainstreaming urban green-blue infrastructure: In R. Brears. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Futures. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan
- Aradas, R., Rotbart, D., Kozak, D. & Henderson, H. (2021), Beneficios y desafíos en la implementación de Infraestructura Azul y Verde: una propuesta para la RMBA. In D. Zunino Singh., V. Gruschetsky & M. Piglia (Eds.), Pensar las infraestructuras en Latinoamérica, Buenos Aires: Teseo Press.
- Kozak, D., Henderson, H., de Castro Mazarro, A., & Rotbart, D. (2020). Blue-Green Infrastructure in Dense Urban Watersheds. The Case of the Medrano Stream Basin in Buenos Aires. Sustainability, 12:6, 2163, DOI:10.3390/su12062163