Research guides: SSM1070H5: Sustainability Law and Policy (Winter 2022): POLICY AND GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

Policy Briefs

HELP VIDEO: Policy Briefs
A short 4 minute video defining what policy briefs are, and tips for writing them with a couple of examples. Created by the UTML Liaison Librarian.

Use these databases and research tools to find policy documents produced or commissioned by:

Canadian Public Documents Collection
Hosted on the Scholars Portal Books platform. Offers full-text books and publications from Canadian public policy institutes, government agencies, advocacy groups, think-tanks, university research centres and other public interest groups. Select 'Canadian Public Documents Collection' using the 'Collections' pull-down menu.

Canadian Research Index This link opens in a new window
Hosted on the ProQuest platform. A major index for Canadian federal, provincial and territorial and municipal government publications but coverage ended at the end of 2018. Particularly useful for identifying older or historical reports that may not be available or easy to discover online.

Use the pull-down menu to change the default search field option from 'Anywhere' to 'Subject heading - MAINSUBJECT' and use the 'Look up Subjects' link to find headings for your topic. Similar functionality is available for organizations or series title.

Canadian Think Tanks
A comprehensive listing of Canadian think tanks with links to their respective websites, maintained by the University of Alberta Libraries.

JSTOR Sustainability
A database of journal articles, book chapters and policy and research reports related to sustainability. Covers more than 100 journals from 20+ disciplines and 5000+ research reports.
Policy File Index
Hosted on the ProQuest platform. Indexes reports, briefs and other documents produced by 350+ public policy organizations, mostly US-based.

OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
Books, papers, statistics, analyses, and data sets focusing on Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries and global economic and development issues
PAIS Index This link opens in a new window
Hosted on the ProQuest platform. A major database for researching international policy, with coverage of policy publications from 120+ countries. AChange the default 'Anywhere' search field to 'Subject heading - MAINSUBJECT' and use the 'Look up Subjects' to find headings for your topic. Similar functionality is available for organizations and/or companies.

GreySource: A Collection of Web-Based Resources in Grey Literature
A directory of web-based collections of grey literature, categorized by discipline. Section 03: Environmental Pollution, Protection and Control contains 20,000+ documents and reports alone. Click on the '?' button to the right of the search box to learn how to search this repository effectively.
Harvard Think Tank Search
A Google Custom Search Engine for U.S. and international think-tanks. Developed and maintained by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's library.
IssueLab
The (U.S.) Foundation Center's repository of 17000+ member foundation publications. Searchable by keyword or browsable by issue, funder, or organization.
International Energy Administration (IEA): Policies & Measures Database
The IEA maintains three online databases that track "...energy-related policies and measures taken or planned to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve energy efficiency and support renewable energy development and deployment. While the focus is on IEA-member countries, there is some coverage of non-member nations' policies.
WorldWideScience
Offers multi-lingual access to R&D and policy-focused reports, conference papers, journal articles and other documentation, statistical and regulatory information and sources, patents, fact sheets, and more.