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2026 OpenFisca Conference —
Policy Innovation & Rules as Code

📅 30th–31st March 2026
🇦🇺 Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
🎟️ Free event upon registration

Day 1: Policy innovation for better public outcomes

Policy making and delivery has largely not kept pace with the increased speed, complexity and pressures of change and changing expectations in a modern, polycrisis world. Civil services around the world have hungrily adopted new methods and technologies, but what is working to drive measurable, scalable and sustainable public good? How might policy as a discipline evolve and transform to become more adaptive, humane and impactful? What can we learn from the past, and might a better future look like that we can work towards?

The Policy Innovation for Public Good event is dedicated to exploring these questions, through international and cross-disciplinary cooperation, bringing together a wide range of civil servants and policy aficionados to share experience, aspirations and bring bold collective reimagining of policy making and delivery.

Venue

INSPIRE Centre, University of Canberra (GPS: -35.238,149.082)

Schedule

  • 08:30: Gates open.
  • 09:00: Welcome and opening keynote.
  • 09:30: Panel: policy innovation around the world.
  • 11:00: Policy as a journey: panel for novel policy methods, frameworks and operating models.
  • 12:30: Networking lunch.
  • 13:30: Policy cooperation: parallel streams to explore, share and co-create better policy futures, each starting with a provocative panel, then identifying opportunities for policy innovation in the domain:
    • Digital regulation for a digital economy;
    • Policy infrastructure for modern public institutions;
    • Policy innovation for better social protection.
  • 15:00: Groups report back on stream insights, with prizes.
  • 16:00: Closing keynote.
  • 16:30: End of the event.

City tour and networking dinner

Details to be announced soon.

Day 2: Rules as Code around the world with OpenFisca

The second International OpenFisca Conference will bring together policymakers and technical experts to advance transparency, innovation, and collaboration in Rules as Code. The intention of this event is to explore and share Rules as Code case studies, best practices and innovative approaches, and celebrate public and civil society actors who have made strong achievements. OpenFisca is the world’s most widely adopted free and open-source platform to write, provide and support proactive modelling and operational use of Rules as Code. This annual conference provides both a chance to learn from exciting Rules as Code innovation around the world, and to extend our collective vision towards where we need to go.

Venue

Semesters Room, Building One, University of Canberra (GPS: -35.239,149.084)

Schedule

  • 09:00: Starting on the same page: what is Rules as Code and what is OpenFisca?
  • 09:15: State of OpenFisca: a global tour of use cases and adoption around the world.
  • 11:15: Parallel peer sharing streams by area of expertise:
    • Product & project managers: how to enable transdisciplinary collaboration in RaC?
    • Developers: difficulties and good practices when coding with OpenFisca?
    • Policy: how do you leverage feedback from coding the rules into policy design?
    • Designers: what difficulties and good practices do you encounter when presenting rules to end users?
  • 12:15: Networking lunch.
  • 13:30: Parallel sessions from public sector agencies and NGOs presenting their products and learnings.
  • 14:45: Parallel sessions from public sector agencies and NGOs presenting their products and learnings.
  • 15:45: Refresher break.
  • 16:15: Round table on adoption strategies: presentations from different witnesses on how Rules as Code has been adopted by the government in their jurisdiction.
  • 16:45: Fishbowl: audience members join the presenters on stage, progressively shifting the conversation to match the interests and challenges of the participants.
  • 17:30: Closing address.
  • 17:45: End of the event.

Partners

  • Program partner: Centre for Public Ideas
  • Media partner: The Mandarin
  • Venue partner: University of Canberra