A New Direction for APO

In 2020, we will be making some exciting changes to our services to support more evidence-informed decision-making in an ever-changing digital world. This is our ‘New Direction’.

At APO, we champion open access and evidence-informed decision-making. We believe that the best way to improve outcomes through public policy is for the best available research evidence to be integrated into decision-making. And the way to achieve this is to make evidence freely available to everyone. Our trusted service is used widely among policymakers and researchers. As one of our newsletter subscribers said in our recent Subscriber Survey:

‘Thank you for providing such an unbiased and informative service. In a world of social media, clickbait, fake news, deepfakes, corporate owned news giants and decline of expertise, APO is a light at the end of the tunnel for me.’

Subscriber Survey respondent, October 2019

APO is a unique public good. We play a critical role in curating incredibly diverse – and dispersed – policy research and resources. Nowhere else in the world is there a digital repository of grey literature (i.e. information that is produced by organisations where publishing is not the primary activity, such as government and universities) that covers a vast array of public policy issues, from science and the environment to social issues and culture.

Established in 2002, we want to continue to provide you with this great service. A lot has changed in the last 17 years. Technology has evolved rapidly and access to information continues to grow. We know that in a world of information overload your needs have changed too:

‘I appreciate the work that goes into the product. It is time for the product to evolve though, so that it can become more relevant. In a world of plentiful information, I think what’s most needed is effective curation and communication of the work that really counts.’

Subscriber Survey respondent, October 2019

As we enter a new decade, we will be making changes to our services to support more evidence-informed decision-making. Our My APO+ subscription service will bring you the option of more curation and tailored APO content to provide you with the right resources to meet your needs, in a timely fashion.

APO will continue to provide open access to our growing database of over 43,000 resources and free subscriptions to our general newsletters. However, if you don’t have time to peruse the vast array of content, or you want to focus on certain policy areas, APO will offer topic-focused newsletters and email alerts to new and important policy resources to meet your needs, and the ability to create your own expert directory and, for the busy people, a list of resources to read later.

And this is just the beginning. We will continue to evolve APO’s services to bring you more accessible and useful resources and tools that help you generate insight and support evidence-informed decision-making. Stay tuned to the APO Blog and APO Update for more announcements throughout next year.