Skip to Main Content
It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

Postgraduate library information and digital skills: Grey literature, clinical data and data sets

Mae’r dudalen hon hefyd ar gael yn Gymraeg

Guide to grey literature for the medical and health sciences

Grey literature refers to both published and unpublished research material that is not available commercially. 
Some examples of grey literature are:

  • conference papers/conference proceedings
  • theses
  • clinical trials
  • newsletters
  • pamphlets
  • reports
  • fact sheets, bulletins
  • government documents
  • surveys
  • interviews
  • informal communication (e.g. blogs, podcasts, email)

Grey literature can be the best source of up-to-date research on some topics note however that grey literature is usually not subject to peer review and must be evaluated accordingly.

This guide to Grey Literature will provide links to some high quality sources:

General data search engines

These are search engines which will search for research datasets which have been published. Of the list, only Elsevier DataSearch will find data that has been published as supplementary material. Just as with general internet search engines, there is not one which will find all the datasets so you may have to search across multiple sources.

Guide to datasets in the health and medical sciences

There is a library guide to datasets - how to find, search, and reference them here: