From 1 April 2026, Overton will upgrade its institutional data. All institution-related filters and settings will be migrated from GRID (Global Research Identifier Database) to ROR (Research Organization Registry). The reason? GRID has not received any updates since late 2021, meaning the names and organisational structures of institutions in Overton have become increasingly out of date. ROR is (as of April 2026) actively maintained, being continuously developed, and is increasingly establishing itself as the industry standard for identifying research organisations.
What is Overton?
Overton was founded in 2018 by Euan Adie, the founder of the Altmetric platform. Overton is a London-based company that tracks and indexes “research, ideas and influences on government policy” worldwide. Overton is now used worldwide by universities, international organisations, funding bodies and government agencies (see Overton‘s About page).
Changes from 1 April:
New filter names: The existing filter [Cites or mentions institution] will remain, but new filters will be added for [Citing institutions] and [Mentioning institutions]. This allows users in Overton to track citations separately from mentions or view them together as before.
Updated institution names: Organisation details will be updated to match the data available in ROR.
Potential search discrepancies: Previous searches may have returned different results. In most cases, a higher number of citations will now be detected due to improvements and updated organisational structures.
Saved searches: Saved searches using the old filters will still work. However, we recommend switching these to the new filters for optimal results.
Recommended actions for all users:
Check and update any saved searches that used institutional filters.
Familiarise yourself with the new filter structure.
Weitere Informationen:
Important information for API users
Help page with detailed information
Please note the provider’s terms of use.
If you have any questions, please contact ub.zeitschriften(at)uni-graz.at.