The NIHR Innovation Observatory is a world leading health and care innovation scanning centre, providing data-driven insights to foster innovation and equitable access to high-quality care.
Like all successful organisations the Innovation Observatory is built on the collective effort of a multidisciplinary team. Each member of our internal team plays an important and necessary role in supporting the delivery of our shared vision.
We aim to transform health systems and improve population health by providing advanced data-driven insights that foster innovation and equitable access to high-quality care.
Our core values are the foundation of the work we do, guiding our research and how we work with our collaborators and stakeholders.
A world leading Horizon Scanning Facility
The NIHR Innovation Observatory is a world leading health and care innovation scanning centre, providing data-driven insights to foster innovation and equitable access to high-quality care.
When approaching the near horizon we see healthcare technologies that have already been launched or are undergoing regulatory and technology appraisal processes.
Engaging with a wide range of different audiences
We provide a gateway to collaboration, intelligence, and growth opportunities in healthcare and life sciences.
Industry engagement is a key strand of NIHR Innovation Observatory's work. Our research, publications, data and insights are crucial for both large corporations and small businesses.
Public involvement in research is a valuable way of making sure that the views of people from different backgrounds and with varied experiences help shape the work we do, even if you’ve had no interest in science research before.
We invest in people and support them in realising their full potential. Through nurturing and encouraging career development, we grow future national and international leaders across quantitative and qualitative methods.
Nurturing relationships within the Health & Life Sciences arena
We have a vast network across the sector both nationally and internationally and like to collaborate wherever possible, whether this is with new stakeholders, partner organisations or sharing our knowledge and expertise.
Ensuring that health care innovation of value can realise its full potential is not a task that we undertake alone. We work closely with a range of national stakeholders from the government, regulators, industry, patients, citizens, and the NHS.
The Innovation Observatory is the gateway to the NICE Technology Assessment (TA) Programme for industry, preventing delays in bringing new and repurposed medicines to the UK market through the early identification and tracking of new and repurposed medicines and health technologies.
We build national and international relationships with partners across the Health & Life Sciences Sector. We engage through speaking and attending high profile events and making valuable connections and introductions.
Automated data analysis of unstructured grey literature in health research: A mapping review
There is a time lag between novel developments of technologies, versus their publication in peer-reviewed literature and finally their appearance in systematic reviews. To address this problem, this mapping review covers 84 method and tools papers on automated data extraction from grey literature. Readers with an interest in using or developing AI methods will gain an overview of tools, their features and performance evaluations.
The amount of grey literature and ‘softer’ intelligence from social media or websites is vast. Given the long lead-times of producing high-quality peer-reviewed health information, this is causing a demand for new ways to provide prompt input for secondary research. To our knowledge, this is the first review of automated data extraction methods or tools for health-related grey literature and soft data, with a focus on (semi)automating horizon scans, health technology assessments (HTA), evidence maps, or other literature reviews. We searched six databases to cover both health- and computer-science literature. After deduplication, 10% of the search results were screened by two reviewers, the remainder was single-screened up to an estimated 95% sensitivity; screening was stopped early after screening an additional 1000 results with no new includes. All full texts were retrieved, screened, and extracted by a single reviewer and 10% were checked in duplicate. We included 84 papers covering automation for health-related social media, internet fora, news, patents, government agencies and charities, or trial registers. From each paper, we extracted data about important functionalities for users of the tool or method; information about the level of support and reliability; and about practical challenges and research gaps. Poor availability of code, data, and usable tools leads to low transparency regarding performance and duplication of work. Financial implications, scalability, integration into downstream workflows, and meaningful evaluations should be carefully planned before starting to develop a tool, given the vast amounts of data and opportunities those tools offer to expedite research.
