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Euan
By Euan
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Search for policy documents that cite or mention your organisation

Find citations of scholarly research in policy documents that are connected to your organisation. Find policy citations and mentions connected to your organisation Search shortcuts and filters help you quickly find all the policy documents that cite scholarly research and mentions of authors from your organisation. This can be helpful when you are looking for evidence of institutional influence in the policy space. Here are some searches you can try: 1. Search from the main dashboard search box (find policy documents that include your organisation’s name) Type your organisation’s name into the search box ensuring ‘Policy documents’ is selected at the top. A dropdown will appear. Select one of the suggested searches or search using the text you have typed into the search box. This searches the full text of all policy documents in Overton. To ensure you find the exact name of your organisation, use quotes (ex. “University of Chicago”) or select he “exact-phrase” option from the drop-down menu. If you organisation has multiple names, you can include each name in quotes, separated by OR. For example “State University of Campinas” OR “Universidade Estadual de Campinas” OR “University of Campinas” OR “UNICAMP.” 2. Search using search shortcut on the main page The start page includes Shortcuts that are customised to your organisation. Use these shortcuts to quickly see: - policy documents that cite your organisation, - articles from your organisation that are cited in policy, - topics from those citing policy documents, - people from your organisation who are cited or mentioned in policy, - all of the institutions that Overton tracks, - and the funders whose funded works have been cited in policy. 3. Search from the Institutions data Index You can see all of the organisations that Overton tracks by clicking “Explore the data” and then “Institutions” at the top of any page. This data is sourced from Open Alex and ROR. Use the search box to find an organisation. The results list includes the articles with that organisations affiliation and a “cited by” number – this is the number of policy documents that cite articles affiliated with the organisation. You can also filter by country, export your results, or sort by number of articles or citations. 4. Search from the policy document search You can also search for your organisation any time from the policy documents results page. - The “Cites or mentions institution” filter shows policy documents that cite research from, or mention people affiliated with, a selected institution - You organisation will always be pinned at the top. - Click “show more” to see and select multiple organisations at once. Video Overview: Search for citations in policy for your organisation Understanding your results Once you have either (1) performed a keyword search for your organisation’s name, (2) used one of the shortcuts on the start page, (3) used the Institution data, or (4) applied an affiliation filter, you will see a set of results displaying policy documents with research citations for individuals affiliated to your organisation. For more information, see ‘How to read policy document results.’ Applying filters If you applied a filter, followed a shortcut, or used the Institution data to find your results, this will now be added as the first filter on the left side of your screen. You can then use other filters to narrow your results down to a specific type of data. To assess organisational policy impact, you may want to use: - Date filters to see policy documents published in the past year or another time frame. - Region or country filters to limit your results to a certain geographical area. - **Source filters **to see what government or private sector policy documents cite your research. - SDG or topic filters to see what larger areas your organisations research is contributing to. For a full list of filters, see Policy document filters. Exporting your results Once satisfied with your search, you can save it, generate a summary report, export the results, or explore them further using ‘Explore’. Use the “Export” at the top of your results to export them to CSV, Excel, RIS, or PowerPoint. For more information on types of exports, please see Understanding CSV exports, Understanding Excel exports, and Differences Between Excel and CSV Exports You can also view a report of your policy documents by clicking “See report.” Reports give you a good picture of your results and are especially helpful for larger result sets. You can see which countries are citing your organisation’s research, the types of documents and sources that cite your research, and how these citations align with SDGs, COFOG Divisions, subject areas, and research topics. For more information, please see Summary reports for policy documents.

Last updated on Jun 25, 2026

Search for policy to policy citations

Policy to policy citations happen when one policy document references another. Overton Index includes actual policy documents but also reports and other scientific or technical documents aimed at policymakers. For simplicity, Overton refers to this entire corpus of documents as “policy documents.” When we examine policy to policy citations, we might be seeing how reports and other targeted materials influence actual decision-making alongside other policy to policy citations. Video: Search for policy to policy citations Find citations of an organisation’s policy documents There are different options for finding an organisation’s policy documents citations. Use a shortcut Search ‘shortcuts’ are found at the bottom of the main dashboard page and are customised for your organisation. Clicking on the shortcut ‘See (number) policy documents citing the (organisation name)’ will find you all the policy to policy citations for your organisation. Apply filters From the list of filters on the ‘Search policy documents’ page, you can select the ‘Cites policy from source’ filter to find all the policy citations for a selected organisation. If you do not want to see citations that come from the same organisation, you will also need to use the ‘Excluding source’ filter for the selected organisation. Another filter option is to apply the ‘From source’ filter and select your organisation. This will provide you list of all the policy documents from your organisation. After you have a list of the list of policy documents from your organisation, you can use ‘Explore’ to find your policy citations by selecting “See the policy citing this source.” Find citations for an individual policy document If a policy document has been cited other policy documents, this will be highlighted in the policy document record. In this example, you will see this policy document from the IPCC has been cited by 3,858 other policy documents. Clicking on the link for the citing policy documents will generate a new list of results. From here, you can review the citing policy documents, generate a summary report, export or explore further.

Last updated on Jun 25, 2026

Search for scholarly articles cited in policy

Find policy citations for scholarly articles cited in policy using DOIs and other unique identifiers and by institutional affiliation Search from the main dashboard On the main dashboard, select the ‘Scholarly articles’ button above the search box and then enter your organisation’s name into the space below. A dropdown will appear. Select one of the suggested searches options. Image of main dashboard Search using DOIs A DOI search is an effective way to find scholarly articles cited in policy documents. It is especially useful for locating citations of specific articles or groups of articles. Researchers and research impact managers can use DOI searches to evaluate the policy influence of individual publications or sets of publications. From the main dashboard, click on the ‘Find policy citations for scholarly works’ button. This opens a box where users can paste in a list of identifiers, including DOIs. Users can also perform a DOI search from the ‘Scholarly Articles’ search using the ‘Search by DOI, ORCID, PMID, or ISBN’ button. Follow these step-by-step instructions for a DOI search, or watch the video demonstration for additional guidance. Video: Scholarly articles search using DOIs Search ‘Scholarly articles cited in policy’ (Discover) Use the search box to find results by typing your organization’s name, journal title, funder, or publisher. Alternatively, you can also apply the ‘With affiliation’ filter with your organisation selected to see the scholarly works from authors affiliated with your organisation which have been cited in policy. Search using other identifiers You can also search for policy citations using other unique identifiers such as PMIDs, ISBNs, or ORCIDs. Users can search from the main dashboard or from the ‘Scholarly Articles’ search. Search results After you have run a search, you will see results displaying scholarly articles cited in policy. Applying filters, exploring and exporting results Filters can be applied to explore and further narrow down search results. Once satisfied with your search, you can save it, generate a summary report, export the results, or use the ‘Explore’ button to see the policy citing the scholarly articles.

Last updated on Jun 25, 2026

Search using DOIs and other identifiers

Searching for scholarly works cited in policy is easy when you use DOIs or other identifiers such as PMIDs, ISBNs, or an ORCID. Researchers can use these searches to evaluate the policy influence of individual or groups of publications or for all of their scholarly works. This approach helps avoid common problems with names and affiliation data. It is especially useful for locating policy citations of specific publications or groups of publications. Search using DOIs A DOI search is a ‘gold standard’ option to find scholarly articles cited in policy documents. It is also incredibly easy. Learn about the ways users can search with DOIs. DOI search using your Overton profile From the main dashboard, click on the “Discover your policy citations’ button and paste in the full list of your publication DOIs (or PMIDs). Users can save and rerun this search to check for new citations for the full list of DOIs. Simple DOI search From the main dashboard, click on the ‘Find policy citations for scholarly works’ button and paste in a single or list of DOIs. Users can also perform a simple DOI search from ‘Scholarly Articles’ in the ‘Discover’ menu and search using the ‘Search by DOI, ORCID, PMID, or ISBN’ button. [Video: Search using DOIs](Video: Searching Overton using DOIs) Video: How to search with DOIs Find your publication DOIs Users can find publication DOIs for scholarly works using other tools such as OpenAlex, Web of Science, ORCID, Google Scholar, etc. If you organisation has an institutional repository, you may also be able to find your publication DOIs there. Search using other identifiers Users can also perform a similar search to a DOI search using PMIDs, ISBNs or using an ORCID. - PMID identifies a specific article published in PubMed - ISBNs are useful if you want to check for policy citations for books or book chapters. - An ORCID search allows you to find publications linked to an ORCID profile. For Overton to capture citations using an ORCID search, the publication must have an ORCID attached to it at the time of publication.

Last updated on Jun 25, 2026

Summary reports for policy documents

When you run a search in the ‘Search Policy Documents and Grey Literature’ search, you can view the results in the app or as a summary report. A summary report provides a more visual representation of a set of search results. Video: Summary reports for policy document results Generate a summary report Once you have a set of search results, click on ‘See report’ in the grey action bar above the search results to generate a summary report. Reading a summary report Document count Number of policy documents in the result set Countries Number of countries where the policy documents came from Sources Number of policy sources (where the policy documents are from) in the results set World map This map displays where the policy sources come from. The size of the dot corresponds with the number of policy documents from that country Document types Number and types of documents in the results set Source specific tags Refers to labels assigned to some groups of policy documents Publication years Number of policy documents published by year Funders of cited research Lists all the funders of the research cited in the policy documents in the results set Policy source types This is a breakdown of policy documents by source category (government, IGO, or think tank). All policy documents have an assigned source type. Subtypes This is a breakdown of policy documents by policy source subtype (note: not all policy documents have a subtype so the numbers may not match to the parent policy source category). Policy sources List of the policy sources where the policy documents in the results came from Cited journals List of the journals that published the research cited in the policy document results Cited publishers List of the academic publishers that published the research cited in the policy document results Policy topics List of main themes (topics) extracted from the policy documents in the results set and the number of policy documents for each topic area (note: a policy document can have multiple topics). Cited institutions List of the institutions or organisations connected to the authors of the cited research found in the policy document results set Policy classifications List of subject areas that the policy documents in the results set fall under Policy SDG categories List of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the number of policy documents in the results set which align to each goal Sharing reports Summary reports can be shared publicly by URL, making it easy to collaborate with colleagues who do not have an Overton account. See ‘Sharing search results’ for step-by-step sharing instructions.

Last updated on Jun 25, 2026

Summary reports for scholarly articles

Results from the ‘Search Scholarly Articles’ search can be viewed as a summary report. A summary report examines the results set in a more visual format that can be printed or shared. Video: Reading a summary report for scholarly article results Generate a summary report Click ‘See report’ in the grey action bar above the search results. This will generate a summary report of scholarly article results. Reading a summary report Article count Number of research outputs in the results set Cited in countries Number of countries where the citing policy documents are from Cited in sources Number of policy sources (where the citing policy documents are from) which cite the research in the results set World map image The map displays where the citing policy sources are from. The size of the dot corresponds with the number of citing policy documents from that country Journals List of the journals that published the research in the results set Publishers List of the academic publishers that published the research in the results set Citing policy countries List of countries where the citing policy sources are from Policy citation counts Sorts the articles in the result set by citation count (number of times the article was cited in policy documents) and provides the citation count for the top 5% and 1% of articles. This section is most useful for smaller results sets. Scholarly article publication years Number of research outputs by their publication year Citing policy publication years Number of policy documents citing the research by their year of publication Funders A list of the funders of the research in the results set Citing policy source types A breakdown of the citing policy documents by source category (government, IGO, or think tank). All policy documents have an assigned source type. Subtypes A breakdown of the citing policy documents by policy source subtype (note: not all policy documents have a subtype so the numbers may not match to the parent policy source category). Sources of citing policy A list of the policy sources which cite the research in the results set Author affiliations A list of the affiliations of the author’s of the research in the results set Authors Authors of the research in the results set Journal subjects List of the subjects which describe the research in the results set MeSH terms List of the Medical Subject Headings (from the National Library of Medicine, NIH) which describe the research in the results set Topics of citing policy A list of main themes (topics) extracted from the citing policy documents in the results set and the number of policy documents for each topic area (note: a policy document can have multiple topics). Classifications of citing policy List of subject areas that describe the citing policy documents Sharing summary reports Summary reports can be shared publicly by URL, making it easy to collaborate with colleagues who do not have an Overton account. See ‘Sharing search results’ for step-by-step sharing instructions.

Last updated on Jun 25, 2026

Understanding policy document search results

This article will help you understand the different elements of the policy document and grey literature search results. Policy document records vs. PDFs in search results You may notice there are 2 sets of numbers at the top of your search results. Results are the number of policy document records in your results set. A policy document could include multiple PDFs. This is common when a policy document includes multiple translations. A policy document record accounts for all the PDFs that make up a policy document and refers to them as a singular unit. PDFs are the number of individual PDFs in your results set. A policy document record could be made up of multiple PDFs. When Overton talks about ‘policy documents’, we are referring to the PDF count (users will see this number reflected on the dashboard when they login) and not the policy document record count. Video: How to read policy document results This video will explain the different elements that make up a policy document result and the different types of results a user may come across in Overton. Coloured bars in policy document results Overton uses coloured bars to help users distinguish between the types of evidence found in a policy document. The blue bar indicates the citation is from a scholarly output like a journal article. The yellow bar indicates a mention of a person and their affiliation in the policy document. A red bar indicates the citation is from a policy document. A double red and blue bar occurs when a policy document has been given a DOI. Identifying citations from key sources in results Key sources is a customisable, user-curated list of policy sources. When an organisation has been cited in a policy document that comes from one of their “Key Sources,” a grey box will appear to the right of the policy document result.

Last updated on Jun 25, 2026