Library & Cultural Services: Politics: Policy Documents

Think Tanks. Policy Documents

The links in this section are to sources of policy literature across the whole of Politics, International Relations & wider social sciences.
Especially useful are the 3 major portals to the output of think tanks, NGOs and policy research organisations: Overton Policy Documents; Harvard Think Tank Search; Policy Commons.

See also the organisations & think tanks listed under the More Resources sections of the Politics subject guide

Areas of Research Interest
Developed by UKRI, Overton & the UK government. Links academic researchers with topics & issues that the government is interested in.
Comparative Agendas Project
Loose network of researchers interested in comparative policy analysis. Links to useful datasets under participating countries
Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC)
UK funding body for academic research across the social sciences. Search website for current & historical research projects and associated publications
Global Policy Forum
Independent policy watchdog that monitors the work of the UN and scrutinises global policymaking.
Harvard Kennedy School Think Tank Search
Powerful but basic tool, searches across 1200 US & international think tanks for publications & more
JSTOR Open Research Reports
A growing curated collection of open research reports from hundreds of think tanks and research institutes from around the world, focusing on the following areas: Business & Economics, Critical Race & Ethnic Studies, Education, Gender & Sexuality, Public Health, Security Studies, and Sustainability
OECD Database on Governance of Public Research Policy (RESGOV)
With more than 100 indicators, the RESGOV database provides country and OECD-wide trends of governance of public research policy. Its purpose is to help inform governments with regards to designing more effective public research policies
On Think Tanks
Useful directory and data on over 2600 think tanks around the world

Overton Policy Documents database
Overton is a portal enabling detailed searches for policy documents. It’s a huge database with records for nearly 6 million documents and links to the full text. It also identifies academic contributions to policy-related research, so can be used to demonstrate impact of academic publications.

Policy Commons
Portal offering curated access to documents from over 20 000 policy organisations (IGOs and NGOs) from around the world. Good coverage of Africa, and improving for Asia
Social Systems Evidence
Continuously updated repository of syntheses of research evidence about the policy programs in a broad range of areas (e.g., climate action, community and social services, economic development and growth, education, environmental conservation, education, housing and transportation), including the Sustainable Development Goals. Funded by McMaster and Monash universities
Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program
Run by Pennsylvania University, includes the Global Go To Think Tanks Index (an annual report ranking think tanks around the world).
Transnational Institute (TNI)
Long-established organisation, undertakes research on global issues and works with partners around the world for justice, democracy and sustainability. Publishes annual "State of power" report, looking at different aspects of power

Open Access. Grey Literature

For some major general sources of open access e-books and e-journals please see the Library's Open Access Content page. Other open access resources are distributed across this guide depending upon their geographical or topical focus

Grey literature is information not produced by commercial publishers. It includes research reports, working papers, conference proceedings, theses, preprints, white papers, and reports produced by government departments, academics, business and industry. It can be hard to track down, but the resources listed below are good starting points, and see also the links to think tank/NGO policy reports here.

APSA Preprints
American Political Science Association website offering working papers & other early research outputs in politics & international relations
BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
German initiative to retrieve academic literature by indexing the metadata of journals, institutional repositories, digital collections, etc.
CORE
Aims to aggregate open access research output from repositories and journals worldwide and make them available to the public. Limited search functionality, similar to Google Scholar
OpenDOAR
OpenDOAR is the quality-assured global directory of academic open access repositories. It enables the identification, browsing and search for repositories, based on a range of features, such as location, software or type of material held. OpenDOAR has opted to collect and provide information solely on sites that wholly embrace the concept of open access to full text resources that are of use to academic researchers. Thus sites where any form of access control prevents immediate access are not included: likewise sites that consist of metadata records only are also declined. Note: OpenDOAR no longer offers cross-searching of repository contents. Descriptive directory only, not full text
SSOAR (Social Science Open Access Repository)
SSOAR is a major repository of open access publications across the social sciences. Maintained by GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
SSRN
The original site for working papers, founded in 1994. Links to working papers across many areas of the social sciences, notably Economics & Politics