Mike Salvaris

Mike Salvaris has worked for over 40 years in the fields of wellbeing, social justice, community engagement and development, government and social policy, and strategic policy coordination. For the past 20 years, he has worked as a academic and community researcher in the measurement of progress, wellbeing, and human rights at local, national and international levels. 

Mike has collaborated with organizations all over the world on special projects, consultancies, research reports, policy development and advice, and strategic planning. Recently, he became a member of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Expert Reference Group helping to develop ‘Measures of Australia’s Progress’, he leads a national research project on measuring human rights at RMIT University, and he acts as committee member and co-founder of the Australian Community Indicators Network. Prior engagements include Limited Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University (1994-2003); Professorial Research Fellow, Victoria University (2004-2006); Adjunct Professor, School of Global Studies, Social Science & Planning, RMIT University (2008- 2013); and Professorial Research Fellow, Deakin University (2013-2014).

For more than a decade, Mike has been working on the development of the Australian National Development Index (ANDI), a civil society-research partnership of over 60 national, state, and local organizations and universities whose members and clients include over 2 million Australians. ANDI aims to promote a national dialogue on Australia’s future progress and to develop an Australian national progress index measuring equitable and sustainable wellbeing in Australia, based on community priorities and expert and research input.

Selected publications 

Salvaris, M. (2015). Engaging citizens in defining national progress: the ANDI project. In B. Douglas, & J. Wodak (Eds.), Who Speaks for and Protects the Public Interest in Australia?, Canberra: Australia21.

Salvaris, M. (2013). Australia’s progress in the 21st century: Measuring the future we want. Commissioned by the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) and VicHealth, published by ACOLA.

Salvaris, M. (2013). Measuring the kind of Australia we want: The Australian National Development Index, the Gross Domestic Product and the global movement to redefine progress. Australian Economic Review, 46(1), 78-91.

Salvaris, M. (2010). Enlisting future studies in a democratic vision of progress. Journal of Future Studies, 15(1), 155-158.

Salvaris, M., & Woolcock, G. (2010). Changing society's DNA codes: Democracy and the global movement for community progress measures. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 45(1), 25-40.

Salvaris, M. (2007). Economic and social rights: the Victorian Charter’s unfinished business. Just Policy, 43, 30-49.