The Bodleian Libraries has arranged a trial to Coherent Digital’s platform, Policy Commons, until the end of March 2025. This has wide appeal for the social sciences in allowing access to material not always readily available. ‘Grey literature is not, by definition, distributed by commercial publishers and made discoverable so it is often underutilized and not citable.  Policy Commons brings grey literature into the permanent scholarly record alongside journal articles and books’ (Coherent Digital promotional literature).

This platform offers access in one uniform site to 3.5 million reports and grey literature from NGOs, research centres, think tanks, and government agencies. Content is both multi-disciplinary and international in scope with coverage spanning 160 countries. Grey literature is often more current than traditional publications and Policy Commons adds thousands of new documents weekly to its platform.

Policy Commons is accessible either via SOLO or through Databases A-Z (under Useful Links on the front page of SOLO). Please forward feedback to Sarah Rhodes (Subject Consultant for International Development, Forced Migration, and African & Commonwealth Studies) or Andy Kernot (Subject Consultant for Geography, Social Policy & Intervention, Public Policy, and Internet Studies).