How was the ANRA developed?

This ANRA makes the case for focusing new research on the most neglected corners of DFSV, where it is sorely needed. ANROWS adopted a staged approach to help identify these gaps. First, ANROWS reviewed the projects it has funded since 2014. This revealed, for example, a significant disparity between research with a primary focus on intimate partner violence (70%) and sexual violence (30%); that imbalance must be addressed.

Additionally, the existing ANROWS research tended towards descriptive research; that is, understanding the various forms of DFSV, for example, as well as community attitudes, and how systems respond to and impact victim-survivors and/or people who use DFSV. This has been valuable work but, if we are truly committed to transformational change, we need intervention research. We must invest in learning what strategies work – and for whom – to improve DFSV outcomes.

Second, ANROWS drew on its Evidence Portal to obtain a bird’s-eye view of intervention research in Australia. ANROWS researchers identified and analysed 64 impact evaluations conducted in Australia, published between 2010 and 2021. Here, there was the same disparity between research on intimate partner violence and sexual violence, with a primary focus on intimate partner violence (75%).

In addition, far more of the evaluations focused on the response to or primary prevention of DFSV, than on intervening early and supporting healing and recovery. The majority of the published interventions were conducted in the most populous states of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, with only one impact evaluation identified for the Northern Territory and none in Tasmania over the same time period.

Early in 2023, in recognition of the knowledge and expertise of people with lived experience of DFSV, the ANRA team held five focus groups with people with lived experience to further identify gaps in the evidence base. The distillation of their voices informed the need for the ANRA to focus on:

• interrupting pathways into perpetration
• challenging privilege and power at play in our institutions
• designing services that meet the needs of populations at risk of marginalisation
• addressing multidimensional systems failure
• critiquing societal norms and attitudes to violence against women
• creating space for ways of knowing that draw on experts by experience and empirical knowledge.

An understanding of power was fundamental to the ANRA process and the research priorities it developed. ANROWS wanted not only to share power, but also to cede it, and give greater voice and influence to people with lived experience and frontline practitioners (not that any of these categories are mutually exclusive).

To that end, ANROWS set out to co-design the ANRA 2023–2028 with victim-survivors of DFSV, academics and practitioners. Participants in two co-design workshops, held in July and August 2023, reflected on the gaps in knowledge identified through the review of research and focus groups findings and determined the priorities for research and ways of working. Their voices are embedded in the ANRA priorities and are now setting the agenda, alongside researchers and practitioners.

As a result of the co-design process, the research priorities for the ANRA 2023–2028 align closely with the needs on the ground and of those impacted by DFSV. After all, for people with lived experience of DFSV, a lack of evidence isn’t just a matter of academic curiosity: it can radically alter the trajectory of their lives.

Ways of working

Research can be enormously helpful, but it can also take a long time and may not always achieve its intended outcomes. We want research that will be impactful, that will compensate contributors for their time, and that includes the subjects of the research in its design.

The ANRA co-design participants recommended creating space for research that is decided and undertaken by people who identify as being part of the population that is impacted by the research topic. In these research projects, community members could be involved in the whole process, from setting the research question(s), through to data collection, analysis and monitoring.

Specifically, the ANRA encourages ways of working in DFSV research that support:

• community-led research and partnerships
• working with victim-survivors and children and young people
• recognising practitioners’ expertise.

Ways of knowing

To end DFSV, it is important to reflect on the influence of power in our work and relationships and whether we (consciously or unconsciously) perpetuate discrimination and power imbalances. When working with people at risk of marginalisation, it is essential that institutions and researchers don’t repeat dynamics that exclude, exploit and disempower. Traditional western research methodologies tend to reinforce power imbalances. Employing non-western approaches to research – such as Indigenous methods and ways of knowing – can enrich the collection of data, encourage connection and mitigate power imbalances (Linda Tuhiwai Smith).

Make use of existing data

The ANRA also encourages researchers to consider data sources that already exist but have not been used for research purposes. There is, for example, a considerable amount of administrative data currently being collected by various agencies on DFSV victim-survivors and people who use DFSV. A priority for this ANRA is to encourage researchers to build relationships and develop research projects with these agencies, and to urge agencies to be open to partnerships with researchers to enable access to data where it is permissible by law, with consideration of ethical standards, human rights and data sovereignty.