What is policy research? 

Policy research is the practice of finding and analyzing existing public policies, programs and initiatives. The goal is to provide evidence-based information to shape policy decisions and improve the effectiveness of government services.

Policy research findings are often used to make recommendations for policy changes, identify best practices and evaluate the impact of policies and programs on specific populations or communities.

Why Policy Research is Essential for Local and State Governments

Policy management runs on strict timelines. Yet, state officers struggle to move policies along the rulemaking cycle and to the right stakeholders.

Every decision, regulation, or legislative response has ripple effects across communities. Without a grounded understanding of what’s worked elsewhere, what laws currently require, or how similar policies have played out in practice, agencies risk acting on assumptions.

Policy research brings the facts to the forefront. It helps government teams:

• Make decisions that are rooted in evidence rather than anecdote.
• Align new regulations with existing laws to prevent conflicts or duplication.
• Anticipate the downstream effects of a proposed rule or policy.
• Benchmark against peer states or localities for best practices.

In short, good research leads to better policy. It builds credibility, withstands scrutiny, and ultimately produces regulations that are more efficient, equitable, and enforceable.

What is the classic research process for policymaking?

The research process for policymaking involves the following steps:

1. Government agencies identify a problem or issue that requires attention, often based on a new law, input from interest groups, expert opinion or public feedback.
2. Policy researchers conduct a research study that will address the identified problem or issue, including selecting appropriate research methods, defining research questions and hypotheses and identifying the relevant population and sample.
3. Policy researchers collect data using the selected research methods, which may include surveys, interviews, observations, focus groups, experiments or secondary data sources.
4. Policy analysts evaluate the collected data using appropriate statistical and qualitative methods to identify patterns, trends and relationships relevant to the policy issue.
5. The policy team uses the research results to make policy recommendations grounded in evidence, feasible and aligned with the policy goals.

A More Practical Approach to Policy Research

Most teams aren’t conducting academic studies with their research. Instead they’re searching, comparing, and validating regulations across various agencies and jurisdictions. That’s why we find a modern research workflow to look something like this:

1. Search by keyword, code citation, or agency
2. Identify similar policies in other cities or states
3. Track versions to see what changed and when
4. Flag repealed or conflicting rules
5. Set alerts for future policy updates

This process supports clarity and speed, something we find local and state government teams desperately need.

Core Elements of Policy Research

Policy research is more than just gathering information — it’s a structured approach to understanding and shaping government action. The key aspects include:

Issue Identification: Pinpointing the challenge or legislative mandate that the policy must address.

Contextual Analysis: Exploring how similar policies have worked in other jurisdictions and under different conditions.

Legal Alignment: Ensuring proposed policies are consistent with federal, state, or local statutes and do not conflict with existing laws.

Stakeholder Impact: Assessing who will be affected, how, and what implementation or compliance might require from various parties.

Outcome Evaluation: Identifying measurable goals and criteria to determine whether a policy achieves its intended impact over time.

Together, these aspects help government teams move from gut instincts to evidence-backed action. They provide the structure needed to navigate political, legal, and operational complexity with clarity.

The critical nature of the policy process in public administration

Policy management runs on strict timelines. Yet, state officers struggle to move policies along the rulemaking cycle and to the right stakeholders.

If these bills are passed into law, affected government agencies need to create policies for the regulation and enforcement of these laws. In designing these policies, agencies rely on traditional regulatory research methods such as contacting neighboring agencies or parsing other government websites, which are often clunky and difficult to navigate. 

Given the time-sensitive nature of the policymaking process, these traditional methods are not only arduous but also less effective. 

Why policy researchers should streamline regulatory research

As a policy researcher, you have these reasons to streamline the research process in formulating and adopting policies:

• Increased transparency and accountability. By enhancing research, policymakers can better account for their time and review resources quickly. For example, with a better system of locating policy research materials, teams can present detailed reports of productive activities to decision-makers, align stakeholders and increase public trust.
• Improved efficiency by saving time and better allocating resources. Research is only a part of the policymaking process, which also includes drafting, analysis, implementation and enforcement. By improving your research approach, your team can make better use of limited time.  

Trying to track down documents in a file room isn’t scalable. Read about the benefits of a paperless government in conducting research.

How Esper Compares

In forums and conversations with customers, policy teams often ask how Esper compares to other platforms. Here’s a quick look at how some of the top solutions stack up:

How AI Fits into Regulatory Research

AI is a tricky topic in government circles. On the one hand, there are so many compliance and security barriers to jump. On the other, outdated manual processes take so much time for employees that may already feel burnt out.

That’s why you need AI-powered smart tools like Esper that are built for government agencies. We see lots of teams beginning to adopt tools like smart search to save time and increase accuracy. 

Here are just a few ways you can use AI tools (like Esper) to support your teams:

• Extract relevant clauses from long PDFs
• Highlight conflicts across jurisdictions
• Auto-summarize multi-agency regulation trends

Creating a date-fueled policy research process

To simplify the process of gathering and analyzing relevant data, start by: 

• Prioritizing policy goals and identifying relevant data.
• Establishing a data collection and analysis process.
• Using data to evaluate policy impact.
• Informing policy recommendations and revisions with data-backed resources.

Policymaking software can help teams carry out these steps in less time than a manual approach will take while maintaining the quality of work. Rather than replacing government workers, policy management platforms like Esper aim to streamline source materials and make the research process more efficient.

With Esper, policy analysts can effortlessly conduct research and comparisons of policies alongside any regulations or laws, guaranteeing the most current policies are in place.

To facilitate the research process using our policy library of state and federal regulations and laws, you can: