Experience the full scope of Policy Commons: Global Think Tanks 

South Africa hosted the G20 Summit in November 2025, the focus was on solidarity, equality, and sustainability has placed evidence-based policy squarely in the spotlight. In this pivotal year, access to trusted, globally sourced research is more important than ever. The Policy Commons 2025 Open Collection already opens doors to high-value policy research from around the world. 

But that is just the beginning. With full access to Policy Commons: Global Think Tanks, Sabinet subscribers gain a far richer, more dynamic experience designed for serious research, evidence-based policy work, and long-term institutional value. 

Policy Commons: Global Think Tanks is not just a database — it is an integrated policy intelligence environment. It brings together reports, working papers, and datasets from thousands of think tanks, NGOs, and international organisations, alongside a suite of discovery, citation, and collaboration tools that make global policy knowledge easier to find, use, and share. 

As the G20 calls for greater global cooperation and knowledge exchange, here are five reasons to go beyond the 2025 Open Collection to full membership: 

1 Access to the full Policy Commons ecosystem 

Membership connects you to more than 11.7-million preserved documents from thousands of global and regional policy organisations. During systematic or literature reviews, researchers will discover up to forty percent more content than is found in traditional databases, including items from the Global South and non-English sources.  

This deep archive ensures policy knowledge is not lost and remains searchable for future reference. This is evident from the  inclusion of over 600 000 unique items from 650 institutions that no longer exist. 

2 Current data and perspectives  — make grounded decisions 

In a year when the G20 is spotlighting rapid shifts in global governance, trade, and sustainability, staying informed is vital. Members of Policy Commons receive daily content updates and use the alerts tool to monitor these key topics as well as role players in these arenas and link findings with policy outcomes over time. Policy researchers can curate highly specific lists of essential documents for teams, committees, or projects. 

3 Enhanced impact tracking and AI-readiness 

Features like metadata improvement, impact/mention tracking, and entity linking support smarter search, summarisation, and integration into knowledge systems. With the new AI-ready framework for the Policy Commons platform, researchers will be able to enter their natural language searches, and the AI tool will return summaries generated from the items found, including links to the original sources and a set of recommended items to view. 

4 Tools for discovery, innovation and impactful collaboration 

Full membership access includes content-integration features, curated alerts, and advanced search filters that help users map networks of ideas, policy hotspots, authors, and organisations in their policy and program design. Institutions can also showcase their own policy outputs on the platform — gaining visibility alongside the world’s leading think tanks and research communities. 

5 A global community — proven impact 

Growing adoption in markets such as India and interest from China has shown that full access drives measurable results — from higher usage and engagement to stronger institutional visibility. These outcomes signal exciting potential for African organisations exploring the same expanded access through Sabinet. This model presents a clear opportunity to strengthen regional policy ecosystems during South Africa’s G20 host year. 

From access to impact: the value of full membership 

Policy Commons: Global Think Tanks delivers the reach, precision, and research depth. This is needed to inform smarter policies in South Africa and across the continent. Full access includes 11.7-million pages of grey literature central to policy research. As well as specialised coverage of over 5,300 hard-to-find NGOs, NPOs and research centres. The very kind of real-world knowledge driving G20 discussions on solidarity, equality, and sustainability. 

Join the full policy conversation shaping solidarity, equality & sustainability.

Be part of South Africa’s G20 year of evidence-based leadership.

→ Request a Demo
More info: https://sabinet.co.za/content/policy-commons/