In February 2025 I joinged the University of Glasgow as the inaugural Head of Division of Political and International Studies in the School of Social Sciences.

Most recently, I was the Sir John Bunting Chair of Public Administration at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and Deputy Dean Research for the Australia and NewZealand School of Government (ANZSOG), from June 2020 - February 2025.

Prior to this, I was a teaching-research academic in the Department of Government and International Relations(1999-2020) at the University of Sydney, and became Professor of Political Sociology in August 2015. I taught: research design and methods, Australian politics and policymaking,political participation and citizen movements; at undergraduate and postgraduatecoursework level, particularly for Honours stream and Mastersof Public Policy students.

Current Research Projects

Storytelling and story listening for policy change, a new collaborative and comparative research projecton how governments and civil society organisations incorporate listening asa form of citizen engagement, and to highlight fairness and the experience of inequality, with Filippo Trevisan of American University in Washington DC, Michael Vaughan of London School of Economics, and Laura Davy, ANU.

Australian Women’s Working Futures (2017-2025), a collaborative, multi-disciplinary project originally funded by the University of Sydney SREI scheme, an ARC Linkage grant, an ARC Discovery Project. This research has had widespread media attentionand policy impact; there are 5 articles published or in progress, and four reports from the Linkage and DP were published in 2022-23. A co-authored book has been contracted by Bristol University Press, to be published in late 2025.

Recently Completed Research Projects

Datafication of Storytelling Advocacy, a collaborative project and co-authored book, StoryTech, for University of Michigan Press, with Filippo Trevisan and Michael Vaughan, has just been published.

Crowdsourced Political Engagement, I was lead CI on an ARC Discovery Project, with Darren Halpin at ANU and Michael Vaughan at the Weizenbaum Institute (now LSE). It focused on the emergence and impact of citizen-led online petitioning and crowdfunding campaigns. We published anarticle, book chapter, and book in 2022 Crowdsourced politics: the rise of online petitions and micro-donations, and two comparative articles via a collaboration with German scholars at the Weizenbaum Institute.

The Civic Network, I was lead CI on this project on young people, civic engagement and social media in Australia, UK and USA, with Michael Xenosof University of Wisconsin and Brian Loader, University of York. It was funded by the Spencer Foundation (USA) through their New Civics Initiative. We published 8 articles, and an edited book from this project. This project’s publications have been highly influential on the field with 2,000 scholarly citations, and over 70,000 downloads in total for the 8 articles.

Digital Citizenship and Political Engagement, my sole-authored monograph on the strategies of online campaigning organisations was published in the Palgrave Macmillan Interest Groups and Advocacy series. This book has been cited 220 times, and downloaded over 18,000 times.

Digital Rights and Governance, a collaborative, multi-disciplinary project funded by theUniversity of Sydney SREI scheme; the publicly available report on a national survey ofcitizen’s attitudes has been downloaded 13,000 times, 1 article, and 2 book chapters havealso been published from this project.

External Grants

April 2022-March 2025 ‘Understanding gender inequality in the post-pandemic future of work’ARC Discovery Project, with Elizabeth Hill, Rae Cooper and Meraiah Foley(Sydney)$280,000.

July 2022 Academy of Social Sciences Australian workshop grant ‘Building the recovery:Creating decent working futures in Australia’(with Rae Cooper, Brendan Churchill andJosh Healy) $9000

July 2020-June 2023 ‘Designing gender equality into the future of work’ ARC Linkage project, with Rae Cooper and Meraiah Foley (Sydney), $470,000.

June 2019 Academic Lead on successful tender to establish an Institute for Public Policy research for NSW Government, Department of Education, collaboration of University of Sydney, WSU and UTS, $10million.

July 2016-December 2019 ‘Crowdsourcing political engagement’ ARC Discovery Project, with Darren Halpin (ANU), $230,000.

2015 grant from Aus PSA to run a workshop ‘Political Organization and participation in adigital age’, May 20-21, 2016 at University of Sydney, with Darren Halpin (ANU) and AnikaGauja (Sydney), $7,000.

2012-2014 ‘The Civic Network: A comparative study of the use of social media forenhancing young people’s political engagement’ funded by the Spencer Foundation, USA, New Civics initiative, with Michael Xenos (Wisconsin-Madison) and Brian Loader (York, UK) $312,000

2012-2014 ‘Innovative democracy? Changing approaches to citizen engagement in Australia, the UK and Denmark’ an ARC Discovery Project, with David Marsh, Paul Fawcett, and Henrik Bang (all University of Canberra) $286,000

2013 grant from Aus PSA to run a workshop ‘OrganisingPolitics in Australia: Parties,Interest Groups and Think Tanks in Transition’, July 25-6, 2013 at Australian National University, Canberra, with Darren Halpin (ANU) and Anika Gauja (Sydney), $7,000.

2006-2008 I was a partner in a research consortium with CIRCA research and the Inspire Foundation working on a project competitively funded by the Australian federal government’s National Youth Affairs Research Scheme (NYARS) $160,000.

Internal ANU Grants

2022 ‘Community attitudes to the future of work and care’ Engagement and Impact Grant, APIP (with Laura Davy) $12,000. Internal University of Sydney Grants (2014-2019)

Internal University of Sydney Grants

2018 ‘Sydney Policy Lab Research lead: Power’ (with Anika Gauja, Madeleine Pill andAnna Boucher), $75,000

2018 ‘Australian Women’s Working Futures Stage 2’ Sydney University StrategicResearch Excellence Initiative grant, (with Rae Cooper and Elizabeth Hill) $200,000.

2017 ‘Digital rights and Governance in Australia and the region’ SREI projects (with Gerard Goggin, Fiona Martin, Kimberlee Weatherall, Michele Ford) $160,000

2017 ‘Australian Women’s Working Futures’ Sydney University Strategic Research Excellence Initiative grant, (with Rae Cooper, Elizabeth Hill, Marian Baird and ElspethProbyn) $150,000.

2015 ‘Social media and Digital citizenship’ SSSHARC grant (with Gerard Goggin and Fiona Martin, Sydney), $15,000

2015 ‘Crowdsourcing political engagement: Change.org’ FASS Digital Humanities grant, $15,000.

2014-2015 ‘Everyday Social Media’ Faculty of Arts Collaborative Research grant (with Gerard Goggin and Fiona Martin, Sydney), $22,000.

At Crawford School of Public Policy I am undertaking PhD supervisionof 2 students who will submit in 2025:

Amy Denmeade on Policy Narratives for emerging technologies

Andrew Morgan on Policy stewardship in thin markets

I have successfully completed:

• 10 HDR students as primary supervisor
• 3 Masters Dissertation students
• 32 Honours thesis students

My completed HDR students as primary supervisor:

Lisa Conway, PhD on Cultural Responsiveness in policy making, completed December2023 (now SES in Australian Public Service and Chair of APS Indigenous SES Committee). In 2024 Lisa was the winner of theannual AusPSA prize for best PhD

Michael Vaughan, PhD on tax justice social movements, completed October 2019 (Leverhulme Fellow, Inequalities Institute, LSE).

Jenna Price, PhD on feminist online movements, completed October 2019, (Senior Lecturer,Journalism Studies, University of Technology, Sydney). In 2020 Jenna was highly commended for the annual AusPSA prize for best PhD.

Francesco Bailo, PhD on online participation in political parties and the Five Star Movement in Italy, completed June 2017 (Lecturer in Digital Media at University of Sydney)

Rebecca Santos, MA Research on citizen participation in policy coproduction, completed May 2016 (policy analyst OECD in Paris)

Colombina Schaeffer, PhD on environment movements in Chile, completed in July 2015 (working for environment NGO Verseo). In 2016 Colombina was awarded the annual AusPSA prize for best PhD.

Trevor Cook, PhD on contemporary union campaigns, graduated in October 2012 (retired)

Books

Filippo Trevisan, Michael Vaughan and Ariadne Vromen (2025) Story Tech: Power, Storytelling and Social Change Advocacy, Michigan University Press.

Ariadne Vromen, Darren Halpin and Michael Vaughan (2022) Crowdsourced politics: the rise of online petitions and micro-donations, Palgrave-Springer.

Ariadne Vromen (2017) Digital Citizenship and Political Engagement: the challenge fromonline campaigning and advocacy organisations, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Brian Loader, Ariadne Vromen and Michael Xenos (eds) (2014) The Networked Young Citizen: social media, political participation and civic engagement, Routledge, London.

Rodney Smith, Ariadne Vromen and Ian Cook (eds) (2012) Contemporary Politics in Australia: Theories, Issues and Debates, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.

Ariadne Vromen, Katharine Gelber and Anika Gauja (2009) Powerscape: Contemporary Australian Politics, 2nd edition, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.

Rodney Smith, Ariadne Vromen and Ian Cook (2006) Keywords in Australian Politics, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.

Ariadne Vromen and Katharine Gelber (2005) Powerscape: Contemporary Australian Political Practice, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.

Awards

2025 ANZSOG Distinguished Fellow

2020 elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia

2018, 2022 Visiting Senior Fellow, Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin Germany

2018 Australian Political Studies Association (AusPSA) Academic Leadership in Political Science award, nominated bycolleagues

2017 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Leadership and Mentoring, nominated by colleagues

2017 SUPRA Supervisor of the Year award, nominated by my research students

2012 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Research Mentoring Award, nominated by colleagues

2009 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Teaching

2006 Faculty of Economics and Business Award for Outstanding Teaching