CPA Australia-University of Melbourne Annual Research Lecture 2018 | The University of Melbourne | 26 September 2018 | The Spot Building, Copland Theatre, Basement, 198 Berkeley St, Carlton, Australia

This lecture will consider how 'account ability' has shaped, is shaping and will shape civilisations, including our own, and how much the future rests in our hands. The influence of accountants is profound, wide-ranging and fast-changing, and our preparation for the future will determine the future of just about everything else.

Not unlike physicists who discern nature’s processes and how to influence them, academic and practicing accountants discern and influence civilisation’s processes from governance and finance to the arts, humanities and technologies physicists employ. With account ability and accountability, civilised behaviours and higher living standards are possible. Without them, civilised behaviours and living standards decline.

Through research and practice insights, we are developing new account abilities, and the pace must now accelerate. Arising information technologies thanks to accounting, notably AI, mean that we are at another inflexion point where our new abilities will define our influence. Exciting times for accountants to be sure, but times we have seen and prospered through before. Civilisation depends on it.

2018 Speaker

Professor Gary Biddle
Professor of Financial Accounting, University of Melbourne