In ”The People Say: How We Built a Groundbreaking Public Research Platform to Catalyze Human-Centered Policymaking,” published in the proceedings of the 2024 EPIC conference, PPL staff members Chelsea Mauldin, Raj Kottamasu, and Petey Routzahn discuss our work to develop The People Say, a pioneering research repository and a model for making rich qualitative data available for policy innovation.

This case study describes the rigorous research and data processing techniques used to create the platform, as well as the immediate impact it had in informing policy. It addresses a key challenge for government agencies and NGOs, which increasingly involve the public in formative research, yet face limitations around recruitment, lack of longitudinal studies, and poor engagement policies.

Created by Public Policy Lab and The SCAN Foundation as part of the PPLUS65 project, the platform is designed to improve policymaking for older adults, with 108 topic and subtopic tags that users can use to filter and associate data with existing quantitative studies. The project also underscores the value of qualitative research in capturing lived experiences and shifting systems to meet the needs of marginalized populations. Future goals include longitudinal research, expanding to other demographics and locations, and supporting civic researchers in creating more public research.