Overton Engage uses an innovative new matching algorithm that identifies when researchers might be suited to a particular policy engagement opportunity and vice versa. Policy teams and research offices can easily find relevant experts for engagement opportunities without requiring an encyclopaedic knowledge of academics and their research outputs.
The matched profile includes key information on the researcher including scholarly interests and even previous policy experience.
How is a match calculated?
We use data from Open Alex to find researchers and analyse their research output in order to establish if their experience and expertise fits the engagement opportunity. See ‘Open Alex and researcher profiles‘ to learn more.
For each opportunity, we identify the top 100 scholarly works that are most relevant, assigning each a relevancy score. Authors of these scholarly works are then ranked according to the frequency in which they appear within the set and how relevant their respective works are to the opportunity.
We then apply a simple ranking system to help users understand the probability of these matches being suitable for an opportunity. To learn more, see ‘How are matched researchers ordered?‘
Researchers no longer at an institution
Researchers may appear as a match even if they no longer work at a given institution. They will appear if they have published work associated with that institution within the last 3 years.