You've recognized the partnership imagination problem. Now let's start building your idea vocabulary with concrete examples from the policy sector.
This issue is for anyone who hasn't considered government, legislative, or agency partnerships as part of their broader impacts. It's for researchers who think policy work is "not their thing" or faculty who assume federal agency partnerships only happen through traditional grant mechanisms.
The key insight: policy partnerships aren't about becoming a policy expert. They're about finding the natural alignment between your work and the people who make decisions that affect communities.
You're revising your CAREER proposal's broader impacts section. A colleague mentions they've done "policy work" but you're not sure what that even means for a bench scientist.
Policy feels distant. It feels like something other people do—people with connections, people at think tanks, people who like meetings in state capitals.
But here's what you might be missing: your research probably connects to something a legislator cares about, an agency is trying to solve, or a community is advocating for. The question isn't whether the connection exists. It's whether you can see it.