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The definition of grey literature is evolving but it is generally defined as content that is produced and published by non-commercial private or public entities including pressure groups, charities and organisations such as the OECD, World Bank and WHO. See also Grey literature - an overview.
Below are some useful sites for finding grey literature. Some links will take you to databases which UCL Library Services subscribes to. These require that you authenticate with your UCL userID and password. Be sure also to check all relevant subject guides for subject-specific sources of grey literature.
BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine A search engine especially for academic open access web resources, BASE provides more than 70 million documents from more than 3,000 sources, including the full text of about 70% of the indexed documents
DART-Europe E-theses Portal Discovery service for full text, open access research theses awarded by European Universities
EThOS (e-theses online service) Search over 400,000 doctoral theses from over 120 institutions. Users must register before use. Around 160,000 are available in full text, and of the remaining 240,000 records dating back to at least 1800, three quarters are available to be ordered for paid scanning.
Gov.uk UK Government publications.
Grey Matters: a practical tool for searching health-related grey literature The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) Research Information Services' grey literature checklist.
Health Education England Knowledge and Library Services Grey literature resources, respositories, theses, databases, catalogues, websites, case studies, books, blogs and courses.
King’s Fund Library The King’s Fund Database is a source of information on health and social care policy and management including material described as grey literature – research reports produced by trusts, charities and government agencies that are not published in journals. Search the database by keyword or consult the public lists of material on specific topics. The database is updated daily and the lists when new and relevant information pertaining to each topic is released.
OAIster Database A worldwide repository of open access publications.
Open access theses and dissertations Over 3.5 million electronic theses and dissertations that are freely available online.
OpenDOAR - The Directory of Open Access Repositories OpenDOAR provides access to open access repositories around the world.
Overton On access users can follow the link and Browse the site or create an account and Login to to save searches, set email alerts, tags and bookmarks and set up key sources lists. Overton is the world’s largest collection of policy documents, parliamentary transcripts, government guidance and think tank research
Policy Commons Access to more than 24 million pages of curated, high quality policy reports, briefs, analyses, working papers, and datasets from thousands of policy organisations including IGOs, NGOs and think tanks. Please view this short video introducing the platform and features.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global Includes millions of searchable citations to dissertation and theses from around the world from 1861 to the present day together with over a million full text dissertations that are available for download in PDF. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full text coverage for older graduate works.
Scottish Government Scottish Government publications, reports and more.
UCL Discovery Open access repository that collects the work of UCL researchers and makes it freely available. Search covers the full-text of the works in the repository.
Google and Google Scholar also list grey literature. However, combing through a large number of results can often be time-consuming so only use this as a source only if you know the title of a report, working paper or conference paper.
Grey Literature adds another layer to your research and provides a different perspective thereby making your research more interesting. However, it is important to evaluate grey literature sources carefully by considering the credentials of the entity that produced the information as there may be inherent biases associated with the production of this information.
If you are working on your dissertation or a research project for your academic programme, our guide will direct you to the support, resources and guidance you need.
International database but hosted in the US at the National Library of Medicine. Currently detailing 345,959 research studies in all 50 states and in 216 countries.
Allows you to search for protocol and results information on:
interventional clinical trials that are conducted in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA);
clinical trials conducted outside the EU / EEA that are linked to European paediatric-medicine development.
Acronym stands for International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. Hosted and overseen by the World Health Organisation. Imports data from various local clinical trials databases, including the ISRCTN, on a regular basis.
Acronym stands for International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number, but the registry now "include(s) any study designed to assess the efficacy of health interventions in a human population". Registered trials must provide 24 data points, which are searchable within the registry and often translate over to other platforms.
UCL's biomedical collections include a wealth of fascinating historical material. Numbering around 10,000 volumes and extensive archives, they range in time from the sixteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. The collections include works by some of the key authors in medical history including pioneers at UCL, where the first operation under anaesthesia in Europe took place in 1846, and the first clinical x-ray was taken in 1896.
The historical collections are held by UCL Special Collections, or in some cases located at the specialist library site
