Introduction to Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Data
These data sets and databases gather data, information, and primary sources for global policy research. Professionals often use these resources to write policy briefs, research papers, speeches, and make recommendations to major political, nongovernmental, and international organizations.
Data Sources for Policy Research
These data sets and databases gather data, information, and primary sources for global policy research. Professionals often use these resources to write policy briefs, research papers, speeches, and make recommendations to major political, nongovernmental, and international organizations.
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Data.gov (US)The U.S. government's open data also includes tools and resources to conduct research, develop policy recommendations, and design data visualizations. Includes federal, state, county, and city government data.
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openAfricaopenAfrica aims to be the largest independent repository of open data on the African continent. It includes information on health, population and housing, climate, gender equality, communications, energy, criminal justice, education, national expenditures, science and technology, tourism, and development.
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Open Government Data Platform (India)Hosted by the Indian government, this site enables the proactive disclosure of shareable data generated by various Government of India entities at local, city, state, and national levels. These data include census and surveys, agriculture, art and culture, science, climate and environment, information and communication, defense, economy and finance, foreign affairs, health, transport, tourism, and more.
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Open Data (UK)Data from the UK published by the central government, local authorities and public bodies. Themes include business and economy, crime and justice, defense, education, environment, government staffing and spending, health, mapping, society, towns and cities, transport, digital service performance, and government reference data.
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EU DataThe official portal for European data and the central access space for all EU data. Includes over 1 million datasets on EU countries and broader EU initiatives.
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EurostatThis is another EU data portal that provides high-quality European statistics to policy makers, businesses, researchers and the public at large. Recent focus areas include Ukraine, energy, comparative data on the EU and other parts of the world, and the European Statistical Monitor.
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EU Composite IndicatorsThis EU Commission site features interactive data visualization platforms to explore and make sense of complex data sets. Their online platforms facilitate the analysis and monitoring of multidimensional phenomena, providing policymakers with the ‘big picture’ for informed national, regional, and local policy decisions with visualizations for gender equity, cultural heritage, inequality, urban culture, sustainability, and more.
This section contains datasets that are international and global in scope including resources from the Library of Congress, the United Nations, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund.
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Library of Congress Dataset RepositoryDatasets are listed here as potential sources for data science or machine learning projects from various Library of Congress and U.S. government initiatives. These sets broadly include APIs, historical business and economics, demographics, international data from countries and international organizations, images, publications, science-focused data, and the U.S. government. The most useful for global studies students will be under the international tab.
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DHL Global Connectedness TrackerThis tracker provides routine updates on the state of globalization and global connectedness. Through broad overviews and graphs, it collates a large amount of data from a wide array of sources to address major questions and trends in globalization.
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World Values SurveyThe World Values Survey is a global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life. Through surveys and interviews in over 100 countries, this site provides data to better understand changes in the beliefs, values and motivations of people throughout the world.
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Library of Congress Selected DatasetsThese datasets are all held by the Library of Congress, and some of them may not be available online. These include web archives (such as some Wikipedia data), transcription datasets from the U.S. and abroad, and publication and periodical datasets.
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World Bank Open DataThis resource provides open data on global development from international, area and country specific, and even some household data. In addition, they provide information on the Sustainable Development Goals and news and blog articles.
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UNdataThis site from the United Nations (UN) includes a variety of statistical resources compiled by the UN's statistical system and other international agencies. These data cover topics such as agriculture, crime, communication, development assistance, education, energy, environment, finance, gender, health, labor market, manufacturing, national accounts, population and migration, science and technology, tourism, transport and trade.
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Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX)Managed by the UN, HDX is an open platform for sharing data across crises and organizations to make humanitarian data easy to find and use for analysis. The data here comes from three broad umbrellas: data about the context in which a humanitarian crisis is occurring (e.g., baseline/development data, damage assessments, geospatial data); data about the people affected by the crisis and their needs; and data about the response by organizations and people seeking to help those who need assistance.
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International Monetary Fund DataThe IMF provides access to macroeconomic and financial data from around the world. Popular datasets include currency exchange rates, world economic outlook, public finance shifts, consumer price index, and labor statistics.
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Cline Center (University of Illinois)This UIUC research center focuses on two types of data resources: extreme-scale collections of unstructured textual data created by news content providers around the world, and structured datasets created by the Cline Center that support a wide range of social science research on human flourishing and societal well-being. In addition to data resources, the Cline Center provides software and computational aids to social scientists, humanists, and researchers focused on processing and drawing conclusions and solutions from large amounts of data. These resources include the Global News Index, projects focused on coups, police violence, and social unrest.
This section features different databases where you can begin searching for international news and press articles to build out and enhance your research projects.
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Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790. Includes current news, business information, company directories, federal and state laws, regulations, legal cases, and more.
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Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new windowIncluded are journals, magazines, and newspapers from ethnic and minority presses. The current collection, Ethnic NewsWatch™, covers 1990-present, and the historical collection, Ethnic NewsWatch: A History™, spans 1959-1989. Ethnicities include: African American/Caribbean/African; Arab/Middle Eastern; Asian/Pacific Islander; European/Eastern European; Hispanic; Jewish; Native People.
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Access World News This link opens in a new windowAccess World News from NewsBank provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources, each with its own distinctive focus offering diverse viewpoints on local, regional and world issues. Date coverage varies with individual newspaper
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PressReader This link opens in a new windowPressReader provides online access to over 700 newspapers from more than 55 countries, displayed in their original format and accessible by country, language, or title. The PressReader App is available for reading papers on tablet devices. Formerly Library PressDisplay.
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Global Studies Research GuideFor further newspaper resources and databases recommended for Global Studies research, please visit the Global Studies Research Guide.
Custom Search bars work similarly to a typical Google search, but the results are filter so only results from pre-designated websites show up. This means that the creators of the custom search are able to pick and choose which organizations Google searches for results from. Many are limited by government bodies, Think tanks, NGOs and other organization types.
The International and Area Studies Library maintains the Global Studies Custom Search Bar, which can be extremely helpful in finding Grey Literature. Try it out below!
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Grey Literature LibGuideFor further help searching for grey literature and grey literature-specific database recommendations, please visit the Grey Literature LibGuide.