This survey aimed to gather data that would help understand how information and research is produced and disseminated by organsations on public interest issues as grey literature.

The survey asks about the kinds of resources that are produced for public policy and practice, particularly material such as reports, reviews, discussion papers, working papers, briefings, conference papers, speeches etc. and their importance for the producing organisations including government departments and agencies, academic centres, NGOs, think tanks and research/consulting companies. 

This survey of producing organisations was designed to be answered at an organisational level or a unit within a larger organisation such as a centre or a department. The survey had  155 full responses with 144 from Australia.

The survey was conducted as part of the Grey Literature Strategies project, an ARC Linkage project (LP120100309) conducted in partnership with the National Library of Australia, the National and State Libraries Australasia, the Australian Council for Educational Research and the Eidos Institute.

Producing organisations were asked to identify themselves as being in one of four sectors:

• Government: Federal, State or Local government departments or agencies
• Education: Universities and vocational organisations particularly university research centres and institutes.
• Non-government organisations (NGOs): associations, interest groups, think tanks, charities
• Commercial or private businesses: large, medium or small companies; business groups; consultants and research companies, lobbyists.

Respondents from all four groups were sought via direct emailing to some of the 3,500 organisations listed as sources on APO at the time as well as general online promotion on APO and other websites and newsletters including via Linkedin and Twitter. 

The data from this survey, and other surveys from this project, is discussed in various publications by these authors available on APO. Links to specific documents will be updated here.