• Consent for publication (if your policy brief contains any individual person’s date in any form, including individual details, images or videos, consent to publish must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. If your policy brief does not contain data from any individual person, please state “Not applicable” in this section.)
• conflict of interests/ competing interests (All financial and non-financial competing interests must be disclosed in this section. Competing interests may be financial or non-financial. A competing interest exists when the authors’ interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by their personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations. Authors should disclose any financial competing interest but also any non-financial interests.)
• Authors’ contributions (The individual contributions of authors to the policy brief should be specified in this section. Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it.)
• Acknowledgements – All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgements’ section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance. Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section. If you do not have anyone to acknowledge, please write ‘Not applicable’ in this section.)
• Authors’ information (This section is optional. You may choose to use this section to include any information about the author(s). This may include details about the authors’ qualifications, current positions they hold at institutions or societies, or any other relevant background information. Author may choose a pseudonym to be published under certain circumstances. However, when the author want to change his real name, the author should present a verified identity to the editor or responsible person (Senior Research Advisor – [email protected] ).

A policy brief can be structured in different ways, depending on the purpose or audience of the brief. Generally, it should contain the following elements:

Title 

The title should be short, descriptive, and catchy. If you are adapting your policy brief from existing research or an article, you may need to change the title to reflect your policy recommendations.

(Executive) Summary

This section of the brief, also known as the overview, aims to provide a short summary of the brief and makes its significance clear. It should describe the social problem; explain why it is important to address the problem; describe your research study; explain what your research found; and explain how your findings should inform policy. A reader who reads only the summary should understand the main points of your policy brief. Like article abstracts, summaries are typically 100-200 words in length or one to two paragraphs.

Introduction

The introduction grabs the reader’s attention by introducing the social problem and explaining why it requires action. It should be concise and quickly get the reader interested in the problem and your solutions. Remember that your policy brief is written for an informed but non-technical audience (e.g., lawmakers, activists, executives, journalists, general public). Hence, it should be free of jargon and unnecessary technical language.

Main Text

Once you have described the social problem in the introduction, you can format the body of your brief in one of three ways:

• Problem – Causes – Effects – Solution

Explain the causes of the social problem and its effects, explain your research and findings, and propose a solution. Your solution will be in the form of one or more policy recommendations, likely placed at the end of the brief.

• Problem – Subtopic 1 – Subtopic 2 – Subtopic 3 – Policy Implications

Organize your brief by subtopics (or case studies) and conclude with your policy implications. Your policy implications should be generalized from the more specific subtopics/ cases. In this format, policy recommendations can be included after each subtopic or together at the end of the brief.

• Problem – Intervention – Results – Policy Implications 

If your research examines an intervention, describe the intervention and its results and then the implications for future policy making.

Policy briefs typically do not include a lengthy discussion of research methods. One or two sentences is usually sufficient. If a reader wants to read your methods section, they can read your article or research.

Policy Recommendations

Policy recommendations should be short statements, stated clearly using action verbs. When writing recommendations, it should be realistic and make sure they are supported by your research. Policy recommendations can be placed anywhere in the brief. They do not necessarily go at the end. For example, they might go right after the introduction (in their own section). They can be distributed throughout the text (i.e., after subtopics), or integrated into the policy implications. Recommendations that are placed in-text (rather than in their own section) should be set apart via boldface type.

Policy implications 

You should conclude your brief with a short discussion of the policy implications of your research. This section is a link between your research findings and your policy recommendations. You should explain what your research means for existing policy and what effect your recommendations are likely to have. If you plan to put your recommendations at the end of the policy brief, they can be integrated here.

Author biography

Your biography should include your name, email address, title, and affiliation. This section should be no more than 100 words in length.

Acknowledgements

If you would like to include an acknowledgement, including funding organizations, they should go here.

Page – A-4

Font – Times New Roman

Line spacing – 1.5 line

Font size – 12 (body text), 13 (Title & sub-heading with Bold), 10 (citation & reference)

Margin – Left – 1.5 inches, Right – 1 inch, Top – 1 inch, Bottom – 1 inch

Header – YCU_RI – Policy Brief [date of submission_dd/mm/yy]

Footer – page number (middle)

Length – 4 ~ 6 pages

Reference – APA (7th edition)

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