Announcing the Narrative Policy Framework Online Community (NPFOC)!

Let me start out by welcoming you to the community of NPF students, scholars, and practitioners! I would like to outline why this site was created, and what it hopes to accomplish. First, this site was envisioned as a place where we could extend and enrich conversations about NPF theory, methods, and techniques outside of our gatherings in person, which normally took place at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting in Chicago. This was the goal originally laid out for the site several years ago, and in the age of COVID-19, the mission seems even more essential now.

Second, this site is an attempt to create a central location where people can learn about the NPF, how to use it, and make connections with others who have had experience doing policy research with the framework. It is also hoped that as the site grows and develops, we will add a listing of tools and instruments which have been used in previously published studies in an attempt to increase the transparency of our methods, provide new students and scholars access to these tools, and to work to identify "best practices" and potential synergies for collaborative research projects.

Third, this site aims to provide new, unique content around research using the Narrative Policy Framework, in the form of blog posts from noted NPF scholars, interviews with authors who have recently published research in academic journals using the framework, discussion and demonstrates focusing on the "nuts and bolts" of designing and conducting an NPF study, and a forum for community members to ask (and answer) each other's questions.

Finally, I want to thank everyone in the NPF community for being so supportive, especially Mark McBeth, Elizabeth Shanahan, and Mike Jones, who helped to provide a vision for this site. I also want to extend my sincere gratitude to Richard Jordan and Patrick Lagan, two MPA students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, whose efforts were indispensable in getting this site off the ground.