Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of the EJA for 2021. The EJA like any business or organisation is in a cycle of continuous improvement with a keen focus on developing strategies and opportunities to increase the number of submissions. We endeavour to inspire and attract articles of professional merit on any subject connected with evaluation including information of professional interest. The EJA aims to position itself as a quality journal that enjoys a growing national and international readership to ensure that the practice and theory of evaluation continue to be stimulated, expanded and strengthened while providing a platform of professional learning. This March 2021 issue encapsulates a representation of the work, history and thinking of a diverse range of evaluators who demonstrate and bring to life exactly what the EJA strives to achieve in keeping with its vision and purpose. A further platform of professional development and learning is the annual International Evaluation Conference conducted by the Australian Evaluation Society (AES) to be held in late September this year in Brisbane. The theme for the 2021 conference is Through the Lens. This theme invites prospective attendees to consider the way we reflect on the wisdom of our elders; to refract our knowledge and learning in ways that enable us to embrace diversity in our communities: as well as to refocus on the future and create shared visions that resonate. This issue provides an early introduction to some of the subthemes of the conference by offering an alternative thinking under the Refract subtheme to continually evolve and diversify our evaluative thinking and practice to be relevant. These articles also do justice to the Refocus subtheme to push the boundaries, practising on the edge and therefore expanding and strengthening knowledge within the evaluation field. It is hoped that these articles will inspire readers to submit their own articles to the EJA as early preparation for conference presentations. The peer-reviewing process supports authors to improve their submissions for eventual publication. In this issue, we have three very unique articles offering different ways of thinking in the evaluation field as the authors seek to strengthen and inform evaluation theory and practice by extending evaluative thinking through tools and knowledge sharing. In the first article for this issue, John Guenther and Ian Falk formulate a model to enable an approach to generalise from qualitative evaluation (GQE). The article titled ‘Generalising from qualitative evaluation’ commences with discussion of the definitions of generalisability in a research context, then seeks to find the differentiation 990117 EVJ0010.1177/1035719X21990117Evaluation Journal of AustralasiaEditorial editorial2021