UTILITY P&M PRAXIS

Research can have greater impact when its findings are communicated clearly to the people making policy, management, regulatory, and operational decisions.

Utility P&M Praxis provides a dedicated venue for making those connections.

Each contribution should help answer three questions:

What does the research tell us?

What does credible research, evidence, or analysis reveal about an important utility issue?

Why does it matter?

Why should utility professionals, policymakers, regulators, communities, or other decision-makers care about the findings?

What does it mean for policy and practice?

What considerations, decisions, opportunities, or future actions can the evidence help inform?

The goal is not simply to summarize research, but to make its practical significance clear.

Utility P&M Praxis is open format.

Research does not always communicate best through a traditional written article. Contributors are encouraged to choose the format that most effectively communicates the evidence, message, and practical significance of their work to the intended audience.

Contributions may be written, visual, data-driven, audiovisual, interactive, conversational, creative, arts-based, or take another form suited to the research and its purpose. Examples might include briefs, visual explainers, data stories, videos, recorded presentations, research conversations, interviews, illustrations, exhibitions, creative media, or other approaches that effectively connect research with policy and practice.

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

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

Regardless of format, every contribution should remain grounded in credible research or evidence and make a clear contribution to utility policy or practice.

Utility P&M Praxis welcomes work 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 translate or build upon:

• Published or forthcoming research

• Working papers

• Ongoing research projects

• Dissertations or theses

• Applied research

• Evidence syntheses

• Research-practice collaborations

• Data analysis

• Other credible research or evidence

Research does not have to be newly published to be valuable to practitioners. Contributions may revisit existing evidence when it offers important insights for current policy or management challenges.

Utility P&M Praxis welcomes contributions from researchers, practitioners, policymakers, regulators, analysts, graduate students, research teams, and research-practice partnerships.

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

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

Strong Praxis contributions are: 

Research-grounded

Based on credible research, data, analysis, or evidence.

Practice-relevant

Connected to a meaningful policy, management, regulatory, organizational, or professional issue.

Accessible

Understandable to informed readers outside a narrow academic specialization.

Focused

Built around a clear research-to-practice message.

Responsible

Transparent about evidence, uncertainty, limitations, funding, and relevant interests.

Praxis especially values contributions that move beyond reporting findings and help readers understand what those findings mean for policy and practice. 

All submissions undergo editorial review before publication.

Review focuses on the quality and appropriateness of the underlying evidence, relevance to utility policy and management, accuracy, clarity and accessibility, strength of the research-to-practice connection, and overall fit with Utility P&M Praxis.

Contributors may be invited to revise their work before publication.

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

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

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.