I have a really concrete example.
We have touched on the muzzling of scientists that was an issue for a number of years. Around 2013, we wanted to do a study that looked at the communication policies for government scientists and compare the policies in different departments. We contacted a lot of people within government, tried to find these policies online. We were not able to get our hands on the policies through those means, so we ended up having to get them through filing many access to information requests.
We were able to get the policies through that mechanism, and this allowed us to do a very comprehensive report comparing the policies across departments and making a number of recommendations. This report was quite foundational in that issue, in dealing with it and providing solutions.
It also gave us a helpful baseline of the communication issues for scientists. Hopefully that will allow us to repeat similar studies down the line to see how things have changed.