Professor Peter Sheehan was Founding Director of the Centre (now Institute) for Strategic Economic Studies at Victoria University from 1993 to 2011, and is currently Research Director.

He made substantial contributions to the field of studies of the global knowledge economy, and of its Australian and international ramifications. He has also contributed to both the analysis of new technologies and their application in Australia, and to policy and commercial developments related to the commercialisation of such technologies in Australia.

His research in the health began in 2013 with a study estimating the returns to investing in child and maternal health in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), published in The Lancet in 2014. The work continued, funded by the UNFPA, on the return to interventions to improve the welfare of adolescents aged 10–19 years in 74 developing countries, published in The Lancet in 2017 and the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2019. Further funding was granted for similar studies in India (UNFPA), and Burundi and Syria (UNICEF).

Currently he is leading an investigation on the investment in adolescent wellbeing for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) (hosted at the WHO) as part of the work for the Global Forum for Adolescents in October 2023. In 2022, he also led an investment case for the WHO to increase its funding levels.

He is also leading a study for the Ford Foundation on exploring ways in which China’s development finance can become more effective in providing equitable development in Global South countries.

In the past, Peter has conducted studies on energy and climate change in China on more sustainable energy use, the transition to a low carbon economy, and investigating policies for improving energy efficient. Some results were published in Nature Climate Change (2014).

From 1982 to 1990, he was Director General, Department of Management and Budget, Victorian Government. In March-April 1983, he was Special Adviser to Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and he previously he was Editor of the Australian Economic Review from 1975 to 1978.