About Us

The Policy Impact Project is a venture of the Policy and Analytics Center, under the direction of Dr. Lindsay Shea at the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University. This project was created in response to the need for changes in policy - today – to address the needs of autistic people and their families in the U.S. In some cases, the need for policy changes is specific to autism, but often, changes to policy that impact broader populations are necessary to improve outcomes for autistic people and their families.

The Policy Impact Project uses research findings to propel systems-level policy solutions that improve the lives of autistic people and those with other developmental disabilities. We work to achieve this by building the infrastructure needed to highlight research findings that have potential to inform policies and decisions that affect the lives of neurodiverse individuals.

Our goal is to be responsive to the needs of community members and policy advocates and decision-makers. We work to expedite the research-to-policy pipeline by delivering research findings that inform policy. We also aim to help researchers identify policy-relevant research questions.

The key activities of the Policy Impact Project include:

  • engaging key community partners, including those with lived experience
  • conducting research on policy-relevant issues
  • highlighting research findings for policymakers - to speed up and improve policy creation and implementation
  • collaborating with researchers to prioritize research questions that inform policy
  • communicating with policymakers to better understand their information needs
  • providing researchers with the tools and resources they need to produce and measure the policy impact of their own research