Professor David Adams is a graduate of the Universities of Tasmania, Sheffield and Melbourne. He has previously been a Departmental Deputy Secretary in Tasmania (Health) and Victoria (Premier and Cabinet and the Department for Victorian Communities). He has been instrumental in Victorian policy initiatives captured in the Growing Victoria Together and the Fairer Victoria programs.

His major fields of research concern the locality drivers of innovation. He has published extensively in public policy and management focusing on local governance and its links to innovation and wellbeing. In the AIRC his work focuses on the Tasmanian Community Assets survey and is based in the North and North West of the State.

He is a Director of Northern Tasmania Development and a Director of the OECD-linked PASCAL Observatory on social capital, place management and learning regions. In December 2008, Professor Adams was appointed as Tasmania's inaugural Social Inclusion Commissioner.

Phone: +61 3 6324 3583

Email: David.Adams@utas.edu.au