About

Unheard: Choices, Actions and Innovations is a policy-oriented platform under VICAI that seeks to bring forward ideas that are not yet mainstream, but are practical, thoughtful, and capable of creating real change.

Many useful policy ideas remain unheard because they do not fit into dominant narratives, institutional routines, or standard policy templates. Yet, these ideas may hold the potential to solve real-world problems when translated into clear action plans, pilots, institutional reforms, and implementation frameworks.

The purpose of this platform is to move beyond commentary alone. It aims to connect ideas with action, and action with innovation. Each contribution should ask a simple but powerful question: How can this idea be implemented?

Why “Unheard”?

Public policy often moves within familiar boundaries. Discussions tend to revolve around established schemes, known institutions, dominant models, and conventional debates. While these remain important, many creative and practical ideas stay outside the policy conversation.

Some ideas are ignored because they appear too small. Some are dismissed because they do not come from powerful institutions. Some remain invisible because they are rooted in local experience, field realities, or everyday problem-solving. Others are considered unconventional even when they are realistic and implementable.

Unheard is an attempt to create space for such ideas.

It is not a platform for abstract opinion alone. It is a space for ideas that can be developed into action. The focus is on identifying problems, proposing workable solutions, and thinking through the institutional, financial, administrative, technological, and social conditions required for implementation.

What We Seek?

Unheard: Choices, Actions and Innovations invites contributions that offer fresh, grounded, and implementable policy ideas in areas such as:

Public policy, governance, development, technology, labour, education, welfare, health, environment, digital transformation, local governance, public finance, livelihoods, social protection, gender, migration, urban and rural development, and society.

The platform is especially interested in ideas that:

• Identify a real policy or governance problem

• Offer an unconventional but practical solution

• Explain how the idea can be implemented

• Suggest possible institutional mechanisms

• Consider financial, administrative, and social feasibility

• Move beyond criticism towards constructive reform

• Connect local experiences with broader policy lessons

What Kind of Contributions Are Welcome?

Contributions may take the form of short policy notes, essays, implementation ideas, field-based reflections, reform proposals, pilot project concepts, institutional design suggestions, or action-oriented commentaries.

A contribution to Unheard should ideally answer the following questions:

1. What is the problem?

2. Why is the existing approach inadequate?

3. What is the new or unheard idea?

4. How can it be implemented?

5. Who should implement it?

6. What resources, institutions, or partnerships are required?

7. What impact can it create?

The idea need not be perfect. But it should be serious, thoughtful, and oriented towards action.

From Ideas to Action

The central belief behind Unheard is that policy innovation does not always begin with large reforms. It can begin with a small but powerful idea.

A local administrative innovation, a better delivery mechanism, a new way of using data, a community-led model, a redesign of an existing welfare scheme, a practical solution to reduce exclusion, or a simple institutional change may sometimes create meaningful impact.

The platform therefore encourages contributors to think not only about what should change, but also about how change can happen.

This means paying attention to implementation. A good policy idea must consider institutions, incentives, resources, capacity, accountability, and the lived realities of people. Without implementation thinking, even the best ideas remain incomplete.

Our Approach

Unheard: Choices, Actions and Innovations follows a simple approach:

Choices refer to the policy options available before society, governments, institutions, and communities.

Actions refer to the concrete steps required to translate these choices into practice.

Innovations refer to new ways of solving old and emerging problems through institutional creativity, technological tools, social imagination, and grounded policy design.

Together, these three ideas define the spirit of the platform.

The aim is not merely to discuss policy, but to imagine how policy can be made more responsive, inclusive, practical, and humane.

Who Can Contribute?

The platform welcomes contributions from researchers, teachers, students, policy professionals, development practitioners, administrators, civil society members, journalists, technologists, and concerned citizens.

We especially encourage young scholars, early-career researchers, field practitioners, and independent thinkers who may have valuable ideas but limited access to formal policy platforms.

Good ideas can come from universities, government offices, villages, towns, classrooms, workplaces, social movements, field visits, community organisations, start-ups, and everyday experience.

Unheard seeks to listen to these voices.

Editorial Orientation

Contributions should be clear, original, constructive, and policy-oriented. They should avoid purely rhetorical arguments and focus on practical reasoning.

Articles should preferably be written in English.

The platform values:

• Original thinking

• Practical policy imagination

• Evidence-based reasoning

• Implementation clarity

• Social relevance

• Ethical and inclusive perspectives

• Constructive criticism

• Respectful public debate

The final decision regarding publication will rest with the editorial team of Unheard: Choices, Actions and Innovation.

Suggested Length

Contributions may generally be between 800 and 1,500 words.

Shorter policy notes may also be considered if the idea is clear, original, and action-oriented.

Longer essays may be accepted where the subject requires deeper explanation, evidence, or institutional detail.

Submission Guidelines

Contributors may submit their articles, policy notes, reform proposals, field-based reflections, or implementation ideas by email to:

unheard@vicai.org

Please mention the following in the subject line:

Submission for Unheard: Choices, Actions and Innovations

The submission should include:

1. Title of the contribution
2. Name of the author
3. Institutional affiliation, if any
4. Short author bio
5. Email address and contact number
6. Main article or policy note
7. References, links, or supporting material, wherever relevant

The article may be sent as a Word document.

Submissions should be original and should not violate copyright or ethical standards. If the article has been published elsewhere, this must be clearly mentioned at the time of submission. 

All submissions will be reviewed by the Unheard editorial team before publication.

What Makes a Strong Submission?

A strong submission to Unheard should not only say that something is wrong. It should show what can be done.

For example, instead of only saying that a welfare scheme excludes people, the article may suggest how beneficiary identification can be improved. Instead of only criticising unemployment, it may propose a local livelihood model. Instead of only discussing digital governance, it may show how technology can be used without excluding vulnerable groups.

The strongest submissions will combine imagination with feasibility.

They will be bold in thought, but grounded in implementation.

Invitation

Unheard: Choices, Actions and Innovations invites you to share ideas that deserve to be heard.

If you have a policy idea, reform proposal, field insight, institutional innovation, or practical solution that can create real change, we welcome your contribution.

The idea may be small, local, unconventional, or still emerging. What matters is whether it is thoughtful, practical, and capable of being translated into action.

Let us bring unheard ideas into public conversation.

Let us move from choices to actions, and from actions to innovations.