Academy Fellow

Professor Philip Mendes is a nationally and internationally recognized researcher in several social policy areas. He has published 13 books, and over 150 peer reviewed articles. He is also the recipient of major research grants including five ARC grants for which he was CI. His research has had a significant impact on contemporary social policy debates and outcomes through providing an evidence base for informing change. The impact of his work has been especially evident in two areas, namely, young people transitioning from forms of out-of-home care (OOHC) such as foster, kinship and residential care, and social security payments including particularly conditional welfare as manifested in the compulsory income management program.

Mendes has been researching young people transitioning from OOHC for over 20 years. He has produced more than 40 significant publications on this topic, and is recognized internationally (via his long-term involvement in the leaving care academic research network known as INTRAC): https://globalintrac.com/ as one of the major researchers in this field. His research projects provided evidence that the existing transition from OOHC system in most Australian jurisdictions – whereby formal government supports ended at no later than 18 years of age – was inadequate in meeting the basic needs of the young people involved, and that instead mandatory state care supports in areas such as housing, education and health should continue until at least 21 years of age (i.e. what is called extended care).

His research has been widely utilized by Australian government and non-government service providers alike, and contributed to improved policy and practice with care leavers. This is evidenced by numerous citations of his work in leading national policy reports, and particularly the recent introduction of extended care programs until 21 years of age in all Australian jurisdictions. Additionally, his work has actively informed the policy recommendations of the OECD on care leavers as reflected in their 2022 report called Assisting care leavers: Time for action. 

Compulsory income management (IM) is a form of conditional welfare involving the quarantining of a percentage of social security payments such as the JobSeeker payment for spending on food, rent and other essential items in a number of sites across Australia. Mendes has been actively researching the philosophical, policy and evaluation debates around IM programs since they were first introduced in 2007. He has completed a number of funded studies, guest edited special issues of the Australian Journal of Social Issues and Social Alternatives, and participated in academic conference Symposiums. 

These activities informed the successful application for an ARC Discovery Grant in 2017 which resulted in a major report titled Hidden Costs, a book titled Compulsory Income Management in Australia and New Zealand published by Policy Press, and 11 peer reviewed journal articles (Mendes was lead author of four), one of which won the Mayer Journal prize for 2021. The project’s evidence-based critique of the limitations of IM arguably influenced the Federal Labor Government’s abolition of the Cashless Debit Card in 2022.

2023 Top Cited article in Australian Journal of Social Issues for 2021-2022, Wiley Certificate.

2022 Australian Journal of Political Science Mayer Journal Prize for 2021 re: ‘Is conditional welfare an effective means for reducing drug and alcohol abuse? An exploration of compulsory income management across four Australian trial sites’.

2019: Monash University Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research Impact (Economic and Social Impact). 

1. Mendes, P 2019, Empowerment and Control in the Australian Welfare State. Routledge. Overriding critical analysis of the major philosophical and political debates within Australian social policy from 1972-2018, Routledge, London, England.

2. Mendes P et al. 2020, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) young people leaving out-of-home care in Australia: A national scoping study, Children and Youth Services Review, 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105848

3. Mendes P et al 2023, Co-design or top-down welfare conditionality? An analysis of the impact of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander submissions to six parliamentary inquiries into the Cashless Debit Card, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 82(2), 167-193, DOI:10.1111/1467-8500.12558.

4. Mendes P 2021, Is conditional welfare an effective means for reducing alcohol and drug abuse? An exploration of compulsory income management across four Australian trial sites, Australian Journal of Political Science, 56(2), 153-170, https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2021.1884646

5. Mendes, P 2023, “The most significant child welfare reform in a generation’: An examination of the strategies used by the Home Stretch campaign”, Australian Journal of Social Issues, DOI: 10.1002/ajs4.288.