Overton gets funding data from OpenAlex
Overton allows you to see where scholarly articles funded by a given organisation are being cited in policy. But how do we know which articles are funded by who?
Accurate information about who has funded what research is hard to come by in the scholarly world. While we previously got funding information from several sources, we now use OpenAlex — the same trusted dataset we already use for other publication metadata.
OpenAlex uses stricter matching criteria and only includes funding data that can be reliably linked to publications. Changing our funding data source has made our funding data cleaner, more consistent, and easier to search across the platform.
What this means for funder organisations
Funding data is notoriously hard to track and not consistent across our different sources. Research doesn’t always reference its funding sources or these aren’t available as part of the article metadata. Some sources require researcher input (like GTR), which can also be inconsistent.
We recommend using the DOI search to query articles that you know are funded by your organisation. We also recommend reviewing your funding data on OpenAlex. If the data in OpenAlex could be improved, you can work with OpenAlex on improving the quality and depth of your funder data directly with them (which would then be reflected in Overton).
For funding organisations that subscribe to Overton, there is an option of Overton creating a custom filter for your data in the platform. If you want to learn more, reach out to support@overton.io.