Upcoming Special Issue on Infrastructure
The editors of Maine Policy Review announce a call for submissions for a special issue that will
explore the important topic of infrastructure. Infrastructure encompasses the facilities and systems
that provide basic and critical services on which communities depend and is central to Maine’s
future in ways that are growing more urgent and complex. Infrastructure such as roads, housing,
schools, broadband, energy, water, healthcare, and emergency services all reflect consequential
policy choices about how we invest in and sustain our communities.
This special issue will collect a range of articles, commentaries, and essays to help Mainers answer
the following questions:
- What new or updated infrastructure do Maine communities most urgently need and who
decides? - How can we invest in what’s needed?
- How are the infrastructure challenges faced by rural and urban areas different, and what can they learn from each other? How do urban and rural infrastructures rely on each other, and
how can we improve those relationships? - How do we make governance structures concerning infrastructure work across
jurisdictional lines? - How can we create innovative infrastructure that can withstand a changing climate while
preserving the qualities that make Maine distinctive?
We welcome perspectives from multiple stakeholders. The scope of potential topics is large and
could include (but is not limited to) the following:
Hard or built infrastructure including
- Transportation infrastructure such as roads, bridges, tunnels, railways, airports,
- ports, and harbors, mass transit systems
- Water management infrastructure such as drinking water supply, wastewater
- management, drainage systems, flood control
- Energy infrastructure such as electric power grid and generation plants or solar,
- wind power installations, natural gas and heating oil pipelines or storage terminals
- Communications infrastructure such as high-speed internet connections, cellular
- phone networks
- Solid waste management infrastructure such as landfills, incinerators, anaerobic
- digesters, materials recovery facilities, composting facilities
Social infrastructure including
Education-related infrastructure such as K-12 schools, colleges, universities,
libraries, museums, historical sites
- Healthcare-related infrastructure such as nursing homes, hospitals, medical facilities,
- mental health clinics, homeless shelters
- Emergency infrastructure such as fire and emergency medical services, disaster
- shelters
- Recreation infrastructure such as state parks & lands, playgrounds, community
- centers, nature reserves, performance spaces
We are soliciting the following types of submissions:
- Commentaries (1000–2500 words) summarizing recent events or processes related to Maine’s infrastructure needs or commenting on some aspect of public policy formulation in Maine.
- Research-based articles (2500–6000 words) reporting the results of original research on an issue pertinent to infrastructure. These submissions should provide a historical framework with background and short literature review, methods and data if applicable, and a discussion of policy implications. Word limits do not include references, endnotes, and bios.
Those interested in being considered for this issue will need to submit an abstract of the proposed
submission (≤ 250 words) to mpr@maine.edu by July 20, 2026. Please include the names and
affiliations of all authors with the abstract.
Final submissions will be due approximately 3 months after proposal acceptance. Examples of past
MPR issues are available at Maine Open Journals. For more information, see our detailed
submission guidelines.
We are excited about this issue and its great importance. Please feel free to contact us if you want
to talk about your ideas or have questions.
Megan Bailey, Guest Editor, megan.bailey@maine.gov
Reed Miller, Guest Editor, reed.miller@maine.edu
Linda Silka, Special Issues Editor, silka@maine.edu
Joyce Rumery, Coeditor, rumery@maine.edu
Barbara Harrity, Coeditor, mpr@maine.edu
