This three year project is funded by the Australian Research Council and aims to develop a knowledge base focused on understanding the ways in which civil society organisations/non-government organisations engage with government and the private sector, and the different approaches used by them to regulate alcohol and ultraprocessed food industries so as to reduce negative health impacts. The project asks: which types of NGO engagement strategies, and under what conditions, lead to effective regulation of harmful commodity industry practices to enhance population health? Specifically, the project will address an evidence gap on the role of civil society organisations in the regulation of harmful commodity industries. While such organisations are increasingly playing a regulatory and governance role in monitoring and lobbying for greater government regulation, their approaches, tactics and strategies as surrogate regulators have been understudied. Furthermore, this project will explore how the effective management of conflict of interest can inform new approaches to strengthening regulation of harmful commodity industries. The focus is at the national (Australia) and Global levels, and initially on alcohol and ultra-processed food industries. This research have been approved by the Australian National University Human Research Ethics Committee (Protocol 2021/017).