The partnership between the University of Papua New Guinea’s School of Business and Public Policy (SBPP) and the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy (Crawford) Development Policy Centre (Devpol) commenced in 2012. In March 2015, a new MOU between these two national universities strengthened the foundation for this collaboration, and in 2018 the MOU was extended for a further three years. In 2023, the MOU was extended beyond the two Schools to cover and encourage all areas of cooperation between the two universities. 

In August 2015, a new grant agreement between ANU and the Australian Aid program significantly expanded the partnership until 2020. A second phase of the project, also supported by Australian Aid, extended the partnership to 2025. 

A third phase of funding is currently underway and will run to 2029. The renewal has been welcomed by the community.

The ANU-UPNG Partnership provides direct benefit to hundreds of students, some of whom will go on to be future leaders, and also helps strengthen SBPP, especially in the key areas of economics and public policy. 

The ANU-UPNG Partnership has a focus on strengthening SBPP teaching and the student experience, collaborative research and outreach, and exchanges for faculty and students in economics and public policy.

Strengthening SBPP teaching and the student experience 

Since 2015, ANU staff have been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses across the Division of Economics and the Division of Public Policy Management. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the teaching staff had to return to Australia at the end of March 2020. Staff continued to deliver lectures to UPNG remotely through 2020 and 2021 – with the support of the remaining staff member still based in Port Moresby. Since 2022, teaching has been a mix of online and in-person. 

 
Collaborative research and outreach 

The Development Policy Centre is involved in a variety of collaborative research and projects with UPNG SBPP.

The Centre and the School co-host the biannual PNG Update which has been held at UPNG’s Waigani Campus (Port Moresby) since 2014. The PNG Update is the country’s premier forum for the analysis of contemporary economic and social issues and feedback from attendees suggests that participation, discussion and quality of conference has significantly improved over time. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we were unable to hold the conference in 2020 and 2021. The PNG Update has been opened by PNG Prime Minister James Marape each year from 2022 to 2025. 

The Centre provides outreach for our collaborative work through a variety of channels, including blog posts and occasional discussion papers. ANU-UPNG public seminars are held monthly, in person at UPNG and ANU and online. 

The edited collection Papua New Guinea: Government, Economy and Society was published by ANU Press in March 2022. Edited by the Centre's Director Stephen Howes and Executive Dean of the School of Business and Public Policy at UPNG Lekshmi N. Pillai, it features contributors from both the ANU and UPNG. The collection was launched at the 2022 PNG Update by PNG Prime Minister James Marape.

The edited collection An Economic History of Papua New Guinea since Independence was published by ANU Press in August 2025. Edited by the Centre's Director Stephen Howes, it features contributors from both the ANU and UPNG. The collection was launched at the University of Papua New Guinea by PNG Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey.

The partnership has also created a number of databases including the PNG Budget Database, the PNG Elections Database, the PNG MP Database and the PNG Economic Database.

For more on the research undertaken under the partnership, see the PNG Project.
 

Faculty exchanges 

We encourage two-way visits between ANU and UPNG staff, with a particular focus on staff development. We sponsor the best SBPP economics graduates to study the Master’s in International and Development Economics (MIDEC) at the ANU Crawford School and they return to SBPP to lecture. 

The summer school program brings ten of the top performing final-year undergraduate students in economics and public policy from UPNG to Canberra to study at Crawford School and meet key figures in the Australia-PNG relationship. The summer school program began in 2018, paused in 2021 and 2022, and resumed in 2023.