Professor Alberto Motta

(This page is no longer updated—apologies for the detour! Please visit my personal website here Alberto's personal Website.)
 

Alberto Motta is a Professor of Economics at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he currently serves as Interim Senior Deputy Dean (Education & Student Experience) in the UNSW Business School and Director of the UNSW Scientia Education Academy. In these roles, he provides university-wide leadership on education strategy, student experience, quality assurance, and evidence-based teaching innovation.

Alberto’s research spans the economics of education, contract and organisational theory, labour economics, and development economics, with a strong emphasis on combining theory, rich data, and large-scale randomised controlled trials to identify what works in education and organisations. His work has been published in leading international journals, including Management Science, Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Labour Economics and Medical Teacher, among others. A defining feature of his scholarship is the close integration of research design, real-world implementation, and policy relevance.

Alberto is the co-founder and co-director of STEP UP, a nationally recognised research, outreach, and policy-engagement program that has positioned UNSW as a leader in the experimental study of education design, educational technology, and social mobility. STEP UP is an integrated program encompassing a sustained research agenda, large-scale experimentation, government and industry partnerships, and translation into practice.

One flagship initiative within STEP UP is the STEP UP: Playconomics High School Outreach Program, which translates research insights into a free, scalable learning experience for secondary school students. Launched in 2022, the outreach program has reached more than 6,500 students across around 100 high schools, with particularly strong participation from low-SES, regional, migrant, and other equity-priority communities. Rigorous evaluation shows substantial gains in confidence, learning, and aspirations, and the program provides an accredited advanced-placement pathway into UNSW and other Group of Eight universities. The outreach program functions not only as an access initiative, but also as a pipeline for research, evaluation, and policy engagement.

Across STEP UP and its associated initiatives, Alberto has raised substantial competitive and philanthropic funding, working closely with government agencies, philanthropic foundations, industry partners, and education systems. These partnerships support large-scale experimentation, linked administrative-data evaluation, and the sustainable delivery of programs with demonstrable impact. STEP UP’s work has informed national policy discussions on education design, equity, and social mobility, and its core learning platform, Playconomics, has supported more than 70,000 university and high school students nationwide. The program has received major recognition, including the 2025 Australian Financial Review Higher Education Award for Teaching & Learning Excellence and the UNSW Business School Societal Impact Award.

As Director of the Scientia Education Academy, Alberto leads a university-wide community of senior education scholars across all faculties, overseeing strategic renewal, governance, capability development, and engagement with UNSW’s senior leadership. His work has been featured in national media including the Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, ABC, and SBS. Across his academic and leadership career, he is recognised for bridging rigorous scholarship with scalable, real-world impact, and for a sustained commitment to equity, student success, and evidence-driven reform.