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Overton for librarians
and resource managers

Support research excellence and impact within your institution

Overton is the world’s largest searchable policy database. We collect millions of policy documents and link them to the research, people and other policy documents that cite them. 

We help institutions to understand and influence real world decision-making. From researchers to students, impact managers to communications officers, our platform supports users across the whole organisation to study and analyse policymaking as well demonstrate scholarly impact in the real world.

And with site license for the Overton platform, campus-wide access is both simple to administer and cost-effective for those managing institutional resources.

Support research excellence and impact in your institution

We offer a 30 day free trial of Overton so you can explore the data and see what’s possible. Fill in the form below and we’ll get you set up.

Request a trial

Overton for discovery

Enhance academic research and teaching with access to over 12m policy documents – find and analyse policy and grey literature from more than 188 countries and in dozens of different languages

Overton for impact tracking

Help your university measure its research impact. Our platform shows where scholarly work is cited in the policy world but also where policy documents reference each other, giving the full picture of an institution’s reach and influence

Overton gives you

 
  • Access to over 12M full text policy documents and grey literature from 32,000 organisations in 188 countries
  • Our rich and extensive dataset helps you uncover documents from sources that are typically difficult to find – several manuals including the Cochrane Handbook and PRISMA for systematic review protocol recommend and incorporate the use of grey literature searching to complement academic searching
  • Sophisticated filters and analysis tools which help you fulfil complex searches and evaluate data more comprehensively
  • Full text indexing of policy documents, which improves your research capabilities and helps you find additional citations and mentions which aren’t picked up automatically
  • The ability to search for topics, universities, specific DOIs, PMIDs & ISBNs or individual researchers to get an overview of your institution’s policy activity
  • Responsive and comprehensive support from our friendly team of experts
  • Summary reports, Powerpoint slides and email alerts to keep track and report on new mentions of your work in policy
  • CSV exports, RSS feeds and API access to bring the data into your own systems
  • Our commitment to constantly update and grow our database – we will add up to 7 sources within 7 days for you each year
  • A site licence for institutional subscriptions – prices are based on research intensity. Contact us to find out mor2

How can Overton help across your institution?

For researchers and students

  • Discover policy documents and grey literature from around the world and manage them in one place
  • Find and evidence the impact of your work for use in grant applications and internal/external evaluations
  • Understand the policy landscape in your field to find out who to work with to achieve policy impact 
  • Decolonise your research and teaching methods – our broad range of policy sources and complex search capabilities can introduce alternative perspectives and remove publication bias when studying a topic

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For research office staff

  • Support your research assessment activities – track and evidence your institution’s impact in policy to create case studies
  • Improve your ability to win and report on research grants, by providing examples of real world impact
  • Analyse your university’s most influential areas and develop research strategies with clear impact pathways
  • Get a better understanding of the mechanisms of influence and help your researchers engage with policymakers

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Who are Overton? 

We’re the world’s largest searchable policy database, typically returning 3x more data than similar products. Our platform is truly global, collecting policy documents from over 188 countries and dozens of different languages.

We then automatically find the references to your scholarly research and mentions of your academics by name. Importantly we also find the links between policy documents – often research is picked up by intermediaries like think tanks and agencies before being cited by other policy sources – giving you unparalleled insight into how your university is engaging with decision-makers.

We characterise a ‘policy document’ as a ‘publication written by or primarily for policymakers’. This means we track everything from white papers, draft bills and transcripts from governments to things like policy briefs from think tanks, working papers from central banks and even clinical guidelines from health agencies. This is a broad definition that gives a clearer picture of the way  ideas and influence spread through different policy actors and sources.

Learn how evidence informs decisions. Discover the biggest collection of policy documents and hard to find grey literature. Track impact and evidence your institution’s influence. Overton brings transparency to policymaking.

Our clients include

Plus several institutional clients across Asia Pacific, North America and Europe

Request a free trial

We offer a fully featured 30 day trial of Overton so that you can explore the data for yourself and see what's possible. Fill in the form below and we'll get you set up.

Have questions? We’re happy to help!​

Contact us

Overton is the world’s largest searchable index of policy documents, guidelines, think tank publications and working papers.

Overton for...

Librarians and resource managers

Research managers 

Researchers 

Policy and communications teams 

Publishers

Research funders

Think tanks, NGOs and IGOs 

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