Dr Richard Parsons

Dr Richard Parsons is a social researcher, author, and currently Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Specialist with the New South Wales Government, Australia. His work focuses on embedding leading practices of SIA, social licence, and community engagement within corporate and regulatory regimes. His present role involves leading the development of SIA practice within the New South Wales Government planning system.

Richard has over 20 years’ experience in social research, working with government, business, universities, and not-for-profit organisations. He has collaborated extensively with CSIRO’s social science group, and conducted over 3,000 research interviews. He has published various articles on social licence, stakeholder engagement, and corporate social responsibility. Applying qualitative methods, he specialises in understanding, assessing, and managing the intangible and perception-based phenomena at the intersections of organisations and communities, such as trust, fairness, wellbeing, community cohesion, resilience, and sense of place.