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The purpose of this article is to contribute to an ongoing dialogue between practitioners and academics. This article describes the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) recent strategies and highlights the IPSASB's increasing outreach to academics.

This is a practitioner's viewpoint which reflects the IPSASB's publicly available documents, and the opinions of a practitioner directly involved in the IPSASB's work and International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) development.

The findings are that the IPSASB has increased its outreach to academics and now academics have more opportunities to engage with the IPSASB and IPSAS developments. The IPSASB's strategy has remained relatively constant over time, focusing on IPSAS to address public sector-specific issues, alignment with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and reduction of differences between IPSAS and Government Finance Statistics (GFS) reporting guidelines.

The limitations of this article (which are also its strength in terms of fitness for purpose) are that as a practitioner's viewpoint it provides a brief overview and personal judgments, rather than an empirical analysis of developments applying a theoretical framework.

The practical implications were IPSASB's increased outreach to the research community providing opportunities for academics to have increased input into IPSAS development, with likely benefits to researchers and the IPSASB.

Practitioners’ engagement with academics supports increased understanding of the respective views leading to better outcomes for practitioners and academics working in the area of public sector financial reporting and its regulation.

This article is the first to (a) describe the IPSASB's increasing outreach to academics during 2019–2020 and (b) compare the IPSASB's strategies for the period of 2019–2023, with its strategies since the beginning of IPSAS developments in 1996–1997.

I WOULD SUPPOSE that the interior of Sierra Leone is as remote as any part of West Africa. Yet Freetown, its capital, has been visited or anchored off by a not inconsiderable number of British librarians. Possessing one of the finest natural harbours in the world it was an important link in the Allied convoy system during World War II, and certainly a view of the “Lion Mountains”, even though they may often have been hidden in rain or mist, was an exciting introduction to Africa.