The New Jersey State Policy Lab – introducing the special issue

Abstract

This issue of The Journal of Policy Studies includes several works that are products of the New Jersey State Policy Lab (NJSPL). This introductory piece explains the brief history of the NJSPL and its philosophy behind producing empirically driven, policy-relevant research that both can produce the types of academic works you see in the articles that follow, and reports that are of use to state decision-makers. The first author of this article is the Principal Investigator of the NJSPL, the second author is its Executive Director, and the third author, one of its summer interns who provided research support. The NJSPL was created in April 2021. It is supported by a recurring grant from the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education (OSHE). It is jointly operated by two schools at Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey: The Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, and the School of Public Affairs and Administration. Very early in its tenure, the NJSPL focused on understanding the role of other policy labs in the United States and made several critical decisions on its functioning. These decisions were made in consultation with OSHE and are largely responsible for the breadth and quality of work that you see in this issue. Policy labs are relatively new entities in the landscape of the US policy process, generally growing prominent over the past few decades. Some are technically part of state governments, others are more independent. Similarly, some are funded by state or local governments, others are funded by foundations. Some focus on particular policy areas and others are more general. Most tend to be empirically driven but some focus on policy experimentation or stakeholder participation. All of these differences impact the outputs of the labs and have certainly impacted ours. A number of labs have been short-lived however, and durability is a constant concern. The next section of this chapter describes the academic literature on the roles of policy labs. Subsequently, we describe the choices made by the NJSPL and how that has affected the nature of the outputs it has produced. Finally, we conclude with a description of those outputs and a brief summary of the pieces in this issue.