The office of the Government Architect New South Wales (GANSW) established the State Design Review Panel (SDRP) to “provide a consistent, state-wide approach to reviewing the design quality of state significant projects” (GANSW, 2018, page 4). Dr. Egbert Stolk is involved in monitoring the impact and effectiveness of this 12-month NSW SDRP program in relation to the objectives outlined in Better Placed and the ambitions of the program. The objectives of this research are to (1) establish the value of this process; (2) to benchmark, track and assess this new design review process in the context of other Australian and international equivalent processes; and (3) to provide an overarching analysis of the program to provide recommendations and improvements. As part of the project, Stolk will curate a UTS research symposium together with Samantha Donnelly on ‘Better Design Review Practices’, combining insights from professional design review practices and design review as a pedagogical model in the design studio.