Call for Submissions for MPR’s Special Issue on COVID-19 Pandemic in Maine

Maine Policy Review is planning a special issue that will examine Maine’s experience of, and response to, the COVID-19 pandemic with an emphasis on information that might prove useful to Maine policymakers. The scope of potential topics is large and includes, but is in no way limited to, the following:

  • economic impacts including effects on particular industries or sectors, demographic groups or regions
  • educational impacts for both K–12 and higher education
  • sociological impacts
  • impacts on public health and health care
  • impacts on infrastructure, supply chain, and distribution networks
  • data challenges faced by researchers and policymakers
  • issue of equity/inequity in light of the pandemic
  • historical comparisons to previous public health crises
  • innovation, resilience, and preparedness
  • interconnectedness of problems

For this special issue, we will consider three lengths of papers:

  • short pieces of between 500 and 1000 words describing particular responses or innovations for dealing with the pandemic
  • medium-length commentaries of between 1000 and 2500 words focusing on some aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic with a connection to public policy in Maine or a summary of a recent event or policy process dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic
  • full-length research-based articles of between 2500 and 6000 words (word limits do not include references, endnotes, and bios)

The full-length article would be expected to place the history of the topic within a policy framework, provide background and a short literature review, and describe policy implications.

Please send a 300-word abstract to the editor at mpr@maine.edu by April 30, 2021. Full submissions will be due in June.

Examples of past MPR issues are available at MPR’s Digital Commons site.

For more information, see our detailed submission guidelines.