(From left) Matilda Hutchinson, Ebony Gagel and Anna Nguyen believe the best of a university open day and a community festival will unite everyone who attends the University of Canberra’s Open Day Fest on Saturday, 12 September. Photo: Supplied.
University of Canberra Open Day Fest 2026
Date: 12 September
Time: 10 am — 3 pm
Location: University of Canberra, Bruce campus
Entry: Free, registration required
Everyone who attends the University of Canberra Open Day Fest will enjoy a mix of campus tours and festival fun on Saturday, 12 September. The open day will be more than what you study: it’s about meeting people, discovering possibilities and finding a place where everyone belongs. It will unite everyone who attends.
Extend your time on campus and enjoy free live music, exhibitions from SLAM! Pro Wrestling and some of Australia’s best woodchoppers as they showcase their impressive skills.
APS Employee — Return to Study: Come along to this specific session for APS employees at UC Open Day Fest. Learn how you can use your work experience to gain admission to UC and our range of courses, available credit and more. In addition, have your free updated LinkedIn headshot taken and sit down with one of our career advisers for a free 15-minute guidance session. Two sessions will be held in the Clive Price Suite (upstairs, inside refectory), at 10:30 am and 1 pm.
Check out the Adult Learner Hub, where you can chat to career advisers about your future, get a free LinkedIn headshot, or join an industry session to learn about how your work and life experience could count towards entry or credit for a UC degree.
Hit up the local food and drink stands or relax at the Capital Brewing Beer Garden. On top of all that, there are academic and student meet-and-greets, campus and accommodation tours, family activities (including a jumping castle and passenger train) and lots more.
Visit UC’s website to learn more, and register for the event!
Procurement for SES Delegates
Date: 16 September
Time: 1 pm — 4 pm
Duration: Three-hour face-to-face session
Location: ACT
Email: https://apslearn.apsacademy.gov.au/user_login
This course is a high-level overview of the procurement lifecycle and guides SES delegates on their role and responsibilities in each phase, from planning through to contract management, ensuring that senior executives are not only aware of their critical roles but are also prepared to lead their teams effectively, enhancing the overall performance and accountability of procurement activities.
There is also a focus on creating a positive procurement culture, emphasising the importance of ethical behaviour, transparency and value for money, and support for their staff by resourcing activities appropriately.
This learning experience has been provided by the Department of Finance, and is suitable for SES Bands 1 — 3.
VPS 3-4 High-Performance & Leadership Workshop
Date: 16 — 17 September
Time: 9 am — 4:30 pm
Location: Cliftons Melbourne
Email: [email protected]
Overview
Develop and refine essential skills to achieve success and position yourself as a future leader.
- Build confidence in your role as a VPS leader.
- Connect your personal values to the way you lead and communicate.
- Lead and support your team effectively, recognising different working styles.
- Make practical decisions and solve problems in day-to-day work.
Trainer Rebecca Cattran is an experienced leadership and career coach, facilitator, and organisational change adviser, with more than three decades’ experience working in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. She has successfully managed multiple career transitions, built high-performing teams and led enterprise-shaping change.
Rebecca is the principal of her own boutique business, Popolo Plus, which helps people realise their potential. She draws on her qualifications in science and communication to bring a systematic approach and people-focused mindset to contemporary change challenges.
MasterCraft Series Workforce Planning for Leaders
Date: 17 September
Time: 11 am — 12:30 pm
Duration: One 60-minute face-to-screen session.
Location: Virtual
Email: https://apslearn.apsacademy.gov.au/user_login
This MasterCraft Series event presents leaders with an opportunity to understand and address workforce challenges in their teams. The session will provide evidence-based workforce insights, highlight priority workforce risk areas, and articulate the role of leaders in addressing and mitigating workforce risks within their teams.
The session will demonstrate workforce management tools and strategies for leaders to address these risks and build engaged, highly capable and high-performing teams.
This event is suitable for all staff.
Evaluating Tenders
Date: 18 September
Time: 9 am — noon
Duration: Three-hour face-to-screen session
Location: Virtual
Email: https://apslearn.apsacademy.gov.au/user_login
Offering knowledge and practices relating to delivering effective evaluation outcomes, this is an essential course for anyone who will be required to sit on an evaluation panel. The course provides a set of tools and techniques to manage sourcing events and their evaluation in a manner that is efficient and accountable and delivers the right outcomes. It includes an overview of the end-to-end evaluation process, including evaluation criteria and scoring methods.
This learning experience has been provided by the Department of Finance, and is suitable for all staff, whether they are officials who are new to procurement, need a refresher, or want to move to a procurement role. It will benefit APS staff working in procurement on an ad hoc basis, regular procurers, or delegates. It is suited to officials who manage quotes or tenders, assist in evaluating them, or oversee staff managing them.
MasterCraft Series — SRW Scholars — Partnerships to Close the Gap
Date: 22 September
Time: 1 pm — 2 pm
Duration: One 60-minute face-to-screen session
Location: Virtual
Email: https://apslearn.apsacademy.gov.au/user_login
Too often, policy engagement happens to communities rather than with them. Traditional approaches can position Indigenous peoples as problems to be managed rather than partners with valuable expertise.
This session would offer a different path forward. Drawing on our research in co-design and public policy, we will explore how the APS can build genuine partnerships that centre Indigenous people’s lived experience and knowledge systems in policy development. Addressing the Closing the Gap Priority Reform 3, we are aiming to move from consultation to co-design, from stakeholder management to authentic collaboration.
Presenters will be:
- Productivity Commission Public Policy Manager working on the review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, Natalie Bryant;
- Senior executive in the APS and currently working at the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, where she leads the Equity and Tertiary Branch, Dr Claire Sainsbury.
Facilitator will be Dr Anthony Cowley, who works at the Department of Social Services, contributing to the design and integration of performance and partnership functions under the Department of Social Services Grants Hub.
This event is suitable for all staff.
EL1 & EL2 Strategic Thinking & Advanced Problem-Solving Workshop
Date: 22 — 23 September
Time: 9 am — 4:30 pm
Location: Online
Email: [email protected]
Overview
Master strategic thinking, empower teams, and conquer complex challenges.
- Apply practical, outcome-driven models for strategic decision-making.
- Explore a systematic approach for problem analysis and strategy formulation.
- Understand your role as an executive leader in empowering others to address challenges.
- Overcome common roadblocks to resolve complex problems.
A leadership expert and executive coach, trainer Dr Karen Whittingham is one of Australia’s top executive management development specialists. She has worked with thousands of executives to transition them into senior leadership roles quickly and effectively. She is an organisational psychologist passionate about people’s success and facilitating their careers to rise.
She teaches organisational psychology at UNSW and works with ASX-listed companies and large public sector organisations to drive engagement, inclusion and performance.
Data Storytelling & Visualisation
Date: 22 — 24 September
Time: 9:30 am — 12:30 pm
Location: Online & hybrid
Email: [email protected]
Learn practical tips and tools to influence decision-makers with your data. To be successful in today’s business environment, people not only need to be able to discover and understand new insights, but they also need to communicate those insights effectively.
Join expert data visualisation specialist Paul Hodge for this engaging, three-part online workshop to gain new skills or refine your existing ones in the core elements of successful data storytelling, including engagement, presentation and design thinking.
Attendees gain high-level insights into how to use data visualisation frameworks and apply tips and tricks to develop data visualisations that will engage, entertain and inspire future decision-makers. You will walk through an example of the end-to-end process of developing an interactive, business-focused dashboard using industry-leading data visualisation software.
Ending Coercive Control & Family Violence WA
Date: 23 — 24 September
Time: 9:30 am — 4:30 pm
Location: Parmelia Hilton, Perth & Online
Email: [email protected]
Transform system responses to strengthen accountability and safety outcomes. Build a coordinated response to coercive control and family violence. The Ending Coercive Control and Family Violence WA Conference comes at a critical time as systems across justice, health and community services are being challenged to move beyond incident-based responses and properly recognise patterns of coercive control.
Despite growing policy reform, services continue to miss psychological abuse, post-separation escalation, financial entrapment and tech-facilitated control, with significant risks of misidentification and uneven outcomes, particularly for First Nations women and children.
This conference is a must-attend for attendees to explore what is failing in current systems and what it will take to build a genuinely coordinated, culturally safe and trauma-informed response across courts, policing, DFV, housing and child protection. Through cross-sector panels, lived experience voices and practical, case-based discussions, the conference will focus on shifting from fragmented responses to integrated systems that can identify and respond to coercive control in practice.
QLD Public Sector Grades AO 3-4 Essential Skills Workshop
Date: 23 — 24 September
Time: 9 am — 4:30 pm
Location: Cliftons Brisbane
Email: [email protected]
Overview
The starting point of your leadership journey.
- Enhance your professional competence to achieve results.
- Learn practical tools to communicate with impact and influence.
- Adopt effective change management principles to support strategic direction.
- Stay informed of career planning and pathways in the Queensland public sector.
From boardrooms to classrooms, Miriam Henke brings a powerful blend of psychological insight and executive coaching expertise to help leaders thrive. As an experienced health psychologist and executive coach, Miriam partners with organisations to deliver workplace wellness, mental health and leadership development programs that create lasting impact across South-East Queensland.
