Policy Commons
The essential reports and documents of today shape the research of tomorrow. Policy Commons makes hard-to-find grey literature accessible to your researchers, students and lecturers.
Part of the Coherent Impact Offering
Policy Commons is a Coherent Digital product and forms part of the broader Coherent Impact offering.
Policy Commons is one of the collections included in a Coherent Impact subscription. Together with Applied Science Commons, it provides the valuable content foundation used to uncover evidence of real-world research impact.
Explore Coherent ImpactThe Importance of Grey Literature
Grey literature provides researchers, students and lecturers with valuable evidence and perspectives that are often not available through traditional publishing channels.
Access to diverse evidence sources.
Alternative perspectives not covered in traditional publications.
Access to ongoing or unpublished, up-to-date studies.
Helps reduce the risk of publication bias.
Social Sciences at Your Fingertips
Policy Commons is a Coherent Digital product and the world's most comprehensive and current database for social science grey literature.
It contains millions of hard-to-find reports not only from existing institutions and organisations, but also from defunct organisations, reports removed from websites, and exclusive digitised backfiles.
Essential reports and documents of today shape the research of tomorrow. Policy Commons makes thousands of these valuable resources available to researchers, students and lecturers on an ongoing basis.
Explore the Modules
Policy Commons brings together extensive collections of hard-to-find and preserved grey literature from around the world.
Global Think Tanks
Global Think Tanks finds and preserves grey literature from the largest to the smallest Intergovernmental Organisations, Non-Governmental Organisations, nonprofits and think tanks around the world.
Third sector organisations work closely with the communities they serve, earning trust and gathering insights others may miss. Their data is often timely, inclusive and grounded in real-world issues.
Included are reports, books, articles, working papers, briefs, data sets, tables, charts, media, case studies, blog posts and statistics.
The collection includes a sizeable and steadily growing base of Africa-centric materials.
World Cities and Local Governments
Some major cities are larger than some countries and generate millions of reports, surveys and research documents focused on urgent societal issues that transcend regional boundaries.
Lack of discoverability and impermanence can make these documents difficult to find. World Cities and Local Governments finds, indexes and preserves these critical publications.
Topics Include
- Animal control and welfare
- Architecture
- Climate and environment
- Diversity, equity and inclusion
- Education and youth
- Emergency, fire and safety
- Energy and utilities
- Immigration
- Statistics and data
- Status of women
- Terrorism
- Transportation
- Leisure and tourism
- Libraries
- Mental health
- Police, crime and incarceration
- Public health and epidemiology
- Small business and economics
- Sports, arts and culture
- Urban planning
- Water resources and sewerage
- Zoos, parks, forestry and urban agriculture
World Governments
Government organisations around the world spend billions on research annually and publish debates, proceedings, reports, commissions, inquiries, budgets, audits and scientific findings.
These reports are often difficult to find and can disappear from their original websites. World Governments locates these important documents and makes them conveniently available on one easy-to-search platform.
The collection includes comprehensive coverage of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, United States Federal Agencies and Oceania, including Australia and New Zealand, as well as additional coverage of governments and agencies from more than 180 countries.
Public Health and Social Care
Public Health and Social Care contains hard-to-find grey literature from the front lines of health-care and social-care providers, researchers and organisations.
This rich collection provides valuable content not found in the mainstream publishing environment.
Sources Include
- Public health agencies
- Medical associations
- Medical foundations
- Hospitals
- Data collection and reporting agencies
- Charities
- Local, state and national governments
- Research institutes
- Expert bloggers
- Funding agencies
- Pharmaceutical and medical companies
- Health commissions
- Health consulting companies
- Community health organisations
- Nursing and allied health organisations
- Academic and professional societies
- Disease surveillance and reporting organisations
North American State, Provincial and Territorial Governments
North American State, Provincial and Territorial Governments preserves and makes searchable the records of everyday governance in practice.
The module contains millions of documents from 2000 to the present across North America, Central America and the Caribbean, covering 40 countries.
It provides a comprehensive and integrated record of executive, legislative and judicial activity from more than 1 500 organisations.
Executive Materials Include
- Presidential and executive-office documents
- Executive orders
- National addresses and press releases
- Annual departmental reports
- Policy frameworks
- Strategy and white papers
- Audits and budgets
- Statistical yearbooks
Legislative Content Includes
- Hearings
- Laws and statutes
- Legislative gazettes
- Committee analyses
- Draft-legislation summaries
- Policy reviews
Judicial Materials Include
- Legal-reform commission reports
- Advisory opinions
- Access-to-justice studies
- Case filings and more
Additional Social Media Coverage
The module also includes selected social media coverage, providing insights into policymaking, public communication and organisational priorities.
- 1 700+ video channels
- 100+ blogs
- 100+ podcasts
Policy Commons 2025 Open Collection
Policy Commons 2025 Open Collection is an initiative to rescue content from government and government-funded organisations experiencing the removal of public information and data.
The initiative helps ensure long-term, free access to important information for the public.
Materials are archived, assigned permanent unique identifiers and indexed for discovery through Google Scholar and other academic databases.
This module is available free of charge to all Policy Commons subscribers.
The Policy Commons Platform
All Policy Commons modules are accessible through Coherent Digital's Policy Commons platform, providing a central access point for librarians, students, lecturers and researchers.
Reliable Access and Discovery
- Permanent identifiers for reliable citation
- A central access point
- Organisation-level MARC records
Powerful Research Tools
- Advanced search and field search options
- Customisable alerts
- Access to valuable grey literature in one platform
Recommend Valuable Content
Recommend valuable content and organisations to be added to Policy Commons. Recommended sources are checked for quality and, where appropriate, added to the directory.
Discover Coherent Impact
Policy Commons is one of the collections included in a Coherent Impact subscription.
Coherent Impact is a Coherent Digital product and a real-world impact intelligence platform that reveals how research is used across policy, practice and applied settings.
Together with Applied Science Commons, Policy Commons provides an important content foundation for identifying evidence of how research influences society and the economy.
Learn More About Coherent ImpactDistributed by Sabinet
Policy Commons is a Coherent Digital product distributed by Sabinet, the trusted distribution partner for Coherent Digital in South Africa and Africa.