What do policymakers need to know, and how can they use that knowledge? These fundamental questions animate the Governmental Research Association (GRA) and its member organizations. These questions inform the articles in this volume. The GRA is a national association of organizations "professionally engaged in public policy, governmental, and civic research."
Readers can expect to find articles reflecting localized approaches to issues of national importance: education policy, financial policy, housing policy, and infrastructure policy. These articles reflect a variety of policy landscapes from states and cities across the United States
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The GRA is a national association of organizations professionally engaged in public policy, governmental, and civic research. The GRA was founded in 1914 to encourage and support the work of local and, later, state-level policy research organizations across the county. These research organizations, founded as early as the 1890s, were the first of their kind—prototypical think tanks. They were designed to provide, for the first time, basic data and information to state and local leaders—regardless of party. These organizations realized that elected officials, no matter how sincere their intentions may be, would ultimately prove ineffective without basic information. Such ideas seem self-evident in the early twenty-first century, but they were novel in the early twentieth century.
In 2024, the GRA claimed 27 members in 17 states. The oldest current member was founded in 1886, and the newest in 2015. The organizations vary by geography, political culture, policy environment, research agenda, target audience, and more. Still, they share a common goal: providing objective, nonpartisan policy research to policymakers and the public.