Subject & Study Guides: Systematic Review Guide: Searching Grey Literature

Grey Literature: Overview & Resources

Extensive database searching is only part of the solution to identifying relevant research. Studies may appear as books, book chapters, working papers, policy documents or departmental reports. To identify studies published in these formats and to minimize bias it can be important to supplement database searches with other sources.

Grey literature sources

Reports
Conference Proceedings
Trial registers
Internet searching / Google Scholar/ Google advanced search
Web sites of relevant organisations
Theses
Contact Authors for unpublished data

Reference lists of relevant articles
Forward citation tracking
e-ToCs of key journals
Experts in the field and research networks
Pre-Prints
Hand-searching individual issues of Journals with a special focus on your subject
Institutional repositories

BASE Free online resource: Includes Grey Literature sources
CADTH CADTH believes that credible, objective evidence should inform every important health care decision. When you want to know what the evidence says, ask CADTH. CADTH is an independent, not-for-profit organization responsible for providing health care decision-makers with objective evidence to help make informed decisions about the optimal use of health technologies, including: drugs diagnostic tests medical, dental, and surgical devices and procedures.
Cochrane Library About us Cochrane is an international network with headquarters in the UK, a registered not-for-profit organization, and a member of the UK National Council for Voluntary Organizations. Cochrane is for anyone interested in using high-quality information to make health decisions. Whether you are a clinician, patient or carer, researcher, or policy-maker, Cochrane evidence provides a powerful tool to enhance your healthcare knowledge and decision-making. Cochrane’s members and supporters come from more than 220 countries, worldwide. We are researchers, health professionals, patients, carers, and people passionate about improving health outcomes for everyone, everywhere. Our global independent network gathers and summarizes the best evidence from research to help you make informed choices about treatment and we have been doing this for 28 years. We do not accept commercial or conflicted funding. This is vital for us to generate authoritative and reliable information, working freely, unconstrained by commercial and financial interests.
CORE The worlds largest collection of open access research papers
Dart-Europe e theses portal About DART-Europe DART-Europe was founded in 2005 as a partnership of national and university libraries and consortia to improve global access to European research theses. The DART-Europe E-theses Portal is managed by UCL Library Services. Contact us.
ETHOS e theses Search over 500,000 doctoral theses. Download instantly for your research, or order a scanned copy quickly and easily.
Grey Literature Report The report is a publication produced by the The New York Academy of Medicine between 1999 - 2016, alerting readers to new grey literature publications in health services research and selected urban health topics.
GreyNet International The Grey Literature Network Service was founded in 1992. The goal of GreyNet is to facilitate dialog, research, and communication between persons and organisations in the field of grey literature. GreyNet further seeks to identify and distribute information on and about grey literature in networked environments. Its main activities include the International Conference Series on Grey Literature, the creation and maintenance of web-based resources, a moderated Listserv and combined Distribution List, The Grey Journal (TGJ), and curriculum development.
Lenus Ireland's central source for Open Access health research Lenus, the Irish Health Research repository is the leading source for Irish research in health and social care. The Lenus collections include peer reviewed journal articles, grey literature, dissertations, reports and conference presentations. Lenus contains the publications of the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) and the collected research output of over 130 health organisations past and present are all freely accessible.
The National Grey Literature COllection
NICE (National Institute for Health & Care Excellence) Evidence-based recommendations developed by independent committees, including professionals and lay members, and consulted on by stakeholders.
Open data navigator from SWITCH Open Data is crucial for research and education. Since most Open Data is scattered in many different archives, repositories and platforms, it is not always easy to find and re-use. The Open Data Navigator provides a solution for researchers and students to discover Open Data relevant to their activities. By bringing together Metadata of Open Data from public administrations, NGOs, archives, galleries, libraries, institutional repositories, as well as open access publications, it facilitates information retrieval for multi- and interdisciplinary research and decision making in academia and beyond
OpenDOAR OpenDOAR is the quality-assured, global Directory of Open Access Repositories. We host repositories that provide free, open access to academic outputs and resources. Each repository record within OpenDOAR has been carefully reviewed and processed by a member of our editorial team which enables us to offer a trusted service for the community.
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The service launched in 2005 as the product of a collaborative project between the University of Nottingham and Lund University, funded by OSI, Jisc, SPARC Europe and CURL.

If you have any queries about OpenDOAR, email help@jisc.ac.uk.
Open Grey Archive System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe, is your open access to 700.000 bibliographical references of grey literature (paper) produced in Europe and allows you to export records and locate the documents
Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) Any correspondence concerning this registry should be sent to harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk. ROAR is hosted at the University of Southampton, UK and is made possible by funding from the JISC. ROAR is part of the EPrints.org network.
Research@Thea Research@THEA is an open access repository established in 2017 containing research from all the Institutes of Technology. Research@THEA is a free electronic resource where you can search the entire collections of the Institute of Technologies research output in a single search or alternatively you can opt to search the research from a single Institute using the Institutes's individual site details.
RIAN
Science.gov Science.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2,200 scientific websites to provide users with access to more than 200 million pages of authoritative federal science information including research and development results.
PEDro The Physiotherapy Evidence Database, abbreviated PEDro, is a bibliographic database containing randomized trials, clinical practice guidelines and systematic reviews in the field of physical therapy.

OTHER SOURCES FOR SUPPLEMENTARY SEARCHES

• Individuals in the field
• Authors of key papers identified
• Research networks
• Mail lists
• JISCMail http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/
• Manufacturers
• Searching for other papers
• Clusters of work on a topic

Databases

Google Scholar
Many conference proceedings are open access, including many important ones not in the Library Catalog or other databases.

Scopus
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database, including peer-reviewed titles from international publishers, Open Access journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, and quality web sources.
Web of Science (All Databases Search (Not currently available in TUS)
Web of Science indexes core journal articles, conference proceedings, data sets, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
PubMed
Provides access to citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s.
IEEE

Provides access to Engineering Conference Material

Australian Clinical Trials AustralianClinicalTrials.gov.au is a joint initiative between the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science to provide information and resources to consumers, health care providers, researchers and industry about clinical trials.
Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials (ANZCTR) Registry The ANZCTR is an online registry of clinical trials being undertaken in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.
CenterWatch
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination UK
ClinicalTrials.gov ClinicalTrials.gov is a database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies conducted around the world.
Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) he Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) is a highly concentrated source of reports of randomized and quasi-randomized controlled trials. Most CENTRAL records are taken from bibliographic databases (mainly PubMed and Embase), but records are also derived from other published and unpublished sources, including CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov and the WHO's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. CENTRAL first began publication in 1996, but its composite nature means that it does not have an inception (start) date, in the way that other traditional biomedical databases do.
Cochrane Library About us Cochrane is an international network with headquarters in the UK, a registered not-for-profit organization, and a member of the UK National Council for Voluntary Organizations. Cochrane is for anyone interested in using high-quality information to make health decisions. Whether you are a clinician, patient or carer, researcher, or policy-maker, Cochrane evidence provides a powerful tool to enhance your healthcare knowledge and decision-making. Cochrane’s members and supporters come from more than 220 countries, worldwide. We are researchers, health professionals, patients, carers, and people passionate about improving health outcomes for everyone, everywhere. Our global independent network gathers and summarizes the best evidence from research to help you make informed choices about treatment and we have been doing this for 28 years. We do not accept commercial or conflicted funding. This is vital for us to generate authoritative and reliable information, working freely, unconstrained by commercial and financial interests.
EU Clinical Trials Register The EU Clinical Trials Register contains information on interventional clinical trials on medicines conducted in the European Union (EU), or the European Economic Area (EEA) which started after 1 May 2004. Clinical trials conducted outside the EU/EEA are included if: they form part of a paediatric investigation plan (PIP), or: they are sponsored by a marketing authorisation holder, and involve the use of a medicine in the paediatric population as part of an EU marketing authorisation. The Register also provides information about older paediatric trials covered by an EU marketing authorisation.
ISRCTN registry The ISRCTN registry is a primary clinical trial registry recognised by WHO and ICMJE that accepts all clinical research studies (whether proposed, ongoing or completed), providing content validation and curation and the unique identification number necessary for publication. All study records in the database are freely accessible and searchable.
Medical and health-related trials registers and research registers Resources recording ongoing and completed clinical trials are increasing and they represent challenges in identification and rapid searching. It is difficult to know how to efficiently search each resource. This resource provides a listing of trials and research registers and a quick reference guide to the search basics for each resource. Ongoing trials and other research and research results are important to a wide range of people: patients, researchers, funders and the commercial sector. This web site was developed following three training days in 2009 presented by Julie Glanville (York Health Economics Consortium) and Carol Lefebvre (Independent Information Consultant). Course participants assisted with the preparation and checking of the data and are gratefully acknowledged.
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This website is regularly updated by Julie Glanville and Carol Lefebvre. We are grateful to Danielle Varley and Karen Bartlett for past help in editing the website.

If you would like to suggest registers to add to this resource please send the details to Julie Glanville at julie.glanville@york.ac.uk.
Scanmedicine Brings together a range of trial registry information.
WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) The mission of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform is to ensure that a complete view of research is accessible to all those involved in health care decision making. This will improve research transparency and will ultimately strengthen the validity and value of the scientific evidence base. The registration of all interventional trials is a scientific, ethical and moral responsibility.

Medline, Scopus, Cinahl and PubMed are also good sources for clinical trials this can be defined as a search limit or a search term