UTILITY P&M EMPIRIA

Research can be stronger and more relevant when it is informed by the experiences, observations, challenges, and ideas of the people working directly in policy, management, regulation, operations, and communities.

Utility P&M Empiria provides a dedicated venue for bringing that knowledge into research.

Each contribution should help answer three questions:

What are we seeing in practice?

What experience, observation, pattern, challenge, idea, development, or emerging issue is becoming visible through practice?

Why does it matter?

Why might this experience or observation matter beyond its immediate setting, organization, jurisdiction, or sector?

What could it mean for research?

What questions, hypotheses, concepts, relationships, data needs, assumptions, or areas of investigation might this experience help researchers reconsider, examine, or explore?

The goal is not simply to describe practice, but to make its potential significance for research clear.

Utility P&M Empiria is open format.

Knowledge from practice does not always communicate best through a traditional written article. Contributors are encouraged to choose the format that most effectively communicates their experience, observation, challenge, idea, and potential significance for research.

Contributions may be written, visual, data-driven, audiovisual, interactive, conversational, creative, arts-based, or take another form suited to the contribution and its purpose. Examples might include practitioner essays, field observations, case reflections, data stories, videos, recorded presentations, professional conversations, interviews, visual narratives, illustrations, exhibitions, creative media, or other approaches that effectively bring practice into conversation with research.

These examples are illustrative, not limiting. Contributors are encouraged to consider the format that best serves the contribution rather than adapting it to a predetermined format.

The format is flexible. The practice-to-research purpose is not.

Regardless of format, every contribution should be grounded in meaningful professional, organizational, community, regulatory, or policy experience and make clear how that knowledge could inform, challenge, inspire, or deepen research.

Utility P&M Empiria welcomes contributions related to utility and infrastructure policy, management, governance, regulation, and practice.

Relevant sectors include:

• Electricity

• Water and wastewater

• Natural gas

• Broadband and telecommunications

• Emerging energy systems

• Other utility and infrastructure services

Topics may include utility governance, public management, regulation, affordability, equity and justice, organizational performance, customer and community engagement, workforce development, infrastructure investment and finance, resilience, sustainability, innovation, artificial intelligence and data analytics, emerging technologies, public participation, rate design, institutional change, leadership, and other issues relevant to utility policy and management.

Contributions may draw upon:

• • • Professional experience

    • Operational or managerial observations

    • Regulatory or policymaking experience

    • Community engagement

    • Organizational challenges

    • Emerging issues or developments

    • Recurring patterns observed in practice

    • Implementation experiences

    • Practitioner-generated data or analysis

    • Case experiences

    • Lessons from programs, policies, projects, or interventions

    • Ideas or phenomena that merit greater research attention

    • Research-practice collaborations

    • Other credible forms of practice-based knowledge or experience

Contributions do not need to present completed research or formal empirical analysis.

A valuable Empiria contribution may begin with something a practitioner has observed, experienced, questioned, encountered, or learned that appears important but is not yet well understood in the research literature.

Utility P&M Empiria especially welcomes contributions from practitioners, utility professionals, policymakers, regulators, managers, analysts, community leaders, consultants, professional associations, and others with direct experience in utility and infrastructure policy and practice.

Researchers, graduate students, research teams, and research-practice partnerships may also contribute when the work meaningfully centers knowledge or observations emerging from practice.

Interdisciplinary, cross-sector, and collaborative contributions are encouraged.

Contributors do not need to be members of the Utility Policy & Management Community.

Strong Empiria contributions are: 

Practice-grounded

Rooted in meaningful professional, organizational, regulatory, policy, operational, or community experience.

Research-relevant

Connected to an issue, observation, challenge, idea, or phenomenon that could meaningfully inform or stimulate research.

Insightful

Offers something that may not be readily visible through existing scholarship alone.

Focused

Built around a clear practice-to-research message.

Accessible

Communicated clearly to researchers as well as practitioners and other informed audiences.

Responsible

Transparent about the basis of the contribution, its context, limitations, uncertainty, and relevant interests.

Empiria especially values contributions that move beyond describing professional experience and help readers understand what that experience might reveal, challenge, or suggest for future research.

All submissions undergo editorial review before publication.

Review focuses on the credibility and relevance of the underlying experience or observation, significance to utility policy and management, clarity and accessibility, strength of the practice-to-research connection, and overall fit with Utility P&M Empiria.

Contributors may be invited to revise their work before publication.

Unless explicitly stated for a particular contribution, publication in Utility P&M Empiria should not be interpreted as formal academic peer review.

Accepted contributions are published as individual items within Utility P&M Empiria.

Depending on the contribution and publication infrastructure, published items may include contributor information, publication and citation information, a permanent publication webpage, ISSN information once assigned, a DOI when available, and related downloadable or supporting materials.

The presentation of each contribution may vary according to its format.