Explore our collections
"Policy Commons is the kind of product I wish I’d had all my career. It provides access to things you can’t find out about but need right now."
Policy Commons brings hidden research into the light.
With Policy Commons you can...
Discover millions of hard-to-find reports in one place
Policy Commons is the world's most comprehensive and current database for social science grey literature. Our full-text, Boolean, proximity, and Advanced Search features and filters help users quickly find the content they need from thousands of sources that are otherwise scattered across the internet.
Cite grey literature with confidence
No more broken links. Every item in Policy Commons has a downloadable citation that’s compatible with reference management systems. Better still, each citation has a COI (Content Object Identifier) which won’t break—just like a DOI.
Uncover "lost" content unavailable elsewhere
We've rescued and preserved millions of publications from defunct organizations, reports removed from websites, and exclusive digitized backfiles.
Diversify your research
You’ll find documents from virtually all countries, including content from the Global South, and from small think tanks whose output is missed or deprecated by search engines.
Keep your research current
We add thousands of new reports every week. Use our Follow tool to get alerts about organizations, people, topics—even your own searches—and be the first to know about new reports relevant to your research.
Download tables
We extract tables so that you can find them without opening a single PDF, download the tables in CSV or image format, and cite the table, not just the report.
Add the content you care about
Tell us about organizations important to your research. We’ll check the sources for quality, add them to the directory, and index their content. Institutional access includes this on-demand service.
Discover your real-world impact
Our tools display where your organization is mentioned in grey literature. Include these case studies in your impact reports with our permanent links and identifiers.
Publish to our community
We invite our users to upload their own content if they own the copyright, or upload links to other digital resources if they do not. We’ll enrich and index your uploaded item, give it a permanent URL, and publish it. Through our partnership with Google Scholar, your content will be discoverable to millions of researchers within days.
Get a unique identifier
Every item you upload to Policy Commons is given a unique, persistent, identifier that’s compatible with all reference and citation management tools. The Content Object identifier (COI) works just like a DOI. Better still, it costs you nothing.
Want a trial?
Free, 30-day trial offered with training
Flexible pricing options, tailored to your institution's needs
Ask your sales rep about collection packages that offer the best value
How we do it
Behind the scenes, Policy Commons employs multiple custom-built crawling technologies, AI selection tools, extraction micro-services, and a powerful search engine, all running on Coherent Digital’s proprietary Commons platform.
How we prevent broken links to grey literature
Learn More
Learn more about the story behind Policy Commons, and meet our editor, Toby Green
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