Oscar Research · Public Sector Research & Market Intelligence

Find, verify and monitor the public sector information that is not already sitting neatly in a database

Oscar combines experienced human research, public-sector knowledge, structured data and AI-assisted gathering to build the evidence your team needs.

Research can cover organisations, structures, people, policies, strategies, suppliers, competitors, markets, procurement activity and public-body change. It can be delivered as a standalone project or used to enrich data, support a report, power a feed or contribute to a wider intelligence workflow.

What is Oscar Research Services?

Research Services is Oscar's flexible public-sector investigation and evidence-gathering capability. It is used when the information required is fragmented, changing, difficult to validate, spread across multiple sources or not already available as a clean structured dataset.

What research can support

Evidence gathering that can stand alone or strengthen another Oscar service

Research can answer a specific information gap, enrich an existing dataset, monitor a market, support a report, configure a feed or provide the evidence behind an intelligence workflow.

HUMAN-LED RESEARCH

Investigation, validation and context

Oscar researchers can investigate organisations, public-body structures, named people, source material and market context, validating information and adding judgement where data alone is insufficient.

MARKET INTELLIGENCE GATHERING

Markets, buyers, suppliers and change

Gather evidence around sectors, policy themes, buyers, competitors, supplier activity, procurement trends, public-body change and emerging opportunities across UK public services.

AI-ASSISTED RESEARCH

Gather and structure information at scale

Use AI-supported workflows to collect, classify and summarise public-body material such as news, annual reports, strategies, policies, plans, consultations and other online collateral.

Built around the evidence gap

Start with the information, source, organisation group, market or change you need to understand or monitor.

Backed by Oscar data

Research can use Oscar's organisation, postholder, contract, spend and supplier data as context or a starting point.

Human + AI where appropriate

Combine judgement and validation with scalable gathering, classification and summarisation.

Useful beyond the project

Outputs can enrich databases, feeds, reports, dashboards, alerts and client workflows.

How a research project works

Define the gap, gather the evidence, validate it and make it usable

Research can be delivered as a one-off project or configured as ongoing monitoring where the information changes over time.

01Define the question or evidence gapAgree the organisations, market, policy area, competitors, sources, stakeholders or change that needs to be investigated.
02Gather the evidenceUse desk research, Oscar data, public sources and AI-assisted collection to find the relevant material.
03Validate & structureReview the findings, resolve inconsistencies, organise the evidence and add the public-sector context required to make it reliable.
04Deliver or keep monitoringProvide notes, datasets, source libraries, feeds, summaries or recurring monitored outputs depending on how the evidence will be used.

Example research themes

What could Oscar research for you?

These are examples rather than fixed packages. Research can be configured around a specific market, public-body group, source type, competitor set, policy topic or intelligence requirement.

PUBLIC BODY ARTEFACT GATHERING

Strategies, policies, plans and source material

Collect and organise annual reports, strategies, policies, consultations, plans, committee papers, news items and relevant website collateral.

ORGANISATION & STRUCTURE RESEARCH

How public bodies are organised and changing

Investigate parent relationships, service responsibilities, leadership arrangements, governance, structural change and organisational context.

MARKET & SECTOR INTELLIGENCE

Evidence around a market or buyer group

Research market areas, policy themes, service pressures, buyer groups, procurement activity and emerging opportunity indicators.

COMPETITOR & SUPPLIER RESEARCH

Track supplier activity and market presence

Investigate competitor activity, supplier presence, buyer overlap, awarded contracts, frameworks and public-sector positioning.

POSTHOLDER & STAKEHOLDER RESEARCH

Find and validate people, roles and networks

Research senior roles, named postholders, role changes, leadership structures, decision-making groups and stakeholder networks.

AI-ASSISTED MONITORING

Monitor, classify and summarise change

Configure AI-enabled workflows to gather, classify, summarise and score new public-sector material for reporting, feeds and alerts.

Possible outputs

Research does not have to end as a report

The output should match what happens next. Sometimes that is a briefing; other times the value is in a structured dataset, a maintained source library or an ongoing monitoring stream.

Research outputs

  • Briefing notes and evidence summaries
  • Structured research datasets
  • Public body source and artefact libraries
  • Validated organisation, postholder or stakeholder data
  • Inputs into bespoke reports, feeds and dashboards
  • AI-assisted summaries, tags, scores and classifications

Useful when you need to

  • Fill gaps that are not available in a standard dataset
  • Validate information before it is used commercially
  • Track public-body change, policy or priorities
  • Enrich customer, prospect or competitor records
  • Monitor strategies, plans, consultations or committee material
  • Turn public-sector web content into structured evidence

A wider Oscar capability

Research can sit underneath data, intelligence and callable capabilities

Research Services is not isolated from the rest of Oscar. The same evidence-gathering capability can support multiple downstream uses.

ENRICH DATA

Fill gaps and validate records

Use research to find missing fields, resolve structures, identify postholders, confirm relationships or add context to existing data.

POWER INTELLIGENCE

Support reports and market analysis

Feed newly gathered evidence into Reports where the next step is interpretation, comparison, analysis and strategic conclusions.

MONITOR CHANGE

Support feeds, alerts and workflows

Turn recurring research and source monitoring into structured data that can be delivered through Feeds or exposed through Oscar\'s capability and integration layer.

How Research relates to other Oscar services

The difference is where the client needs Oscar to start

Research is the natural starting point when information has to be found, checked or monitored. The resulting evidence can then feed into other Oscar services when the requirement goes further.

REPORTS

You need Oscar to answer and explain a strategic question

Use Reports when the primary requirement is interpretation, market analysis and a decision-ready answer built from the available evidence.

Explore Bespoke Reports →
FEEDS / DATA SERVICES

You need the evidence delivered into your environment

Use Feeds when the primary requirement is structured, recurring or live delivery into files, CRM, BI, APIs, connectors or other systems.

Explore Data Services →
CAPABILITIES & INTEGRATION

You need the research or data exposed as a callable function

Explore Oscar\'s growing catalogue of public sector data and AI capabilities, or configure a new capability around a specific retrieval, validation, classification, summarisation or other client requirement.

Explore Capabilities →
DATABASES

You need direct access to maintained structured data

Use Oscar's core databases when the information you need is already available as maintained organisation, postholder or sector data.

Explore Databases →
CONTRACT INTELLIGENCE

You want to investigate procurement activity directly

Use the live intelligence layer for contracts, tenders, buyers, suppliers and commercial market activity.

Explore Contract Intelligence →
SUPPLIER INTELLIGENCE

You want evidence around supplier footprint and relationships

Use supplier intelligence to explore public-sector contract and spend relationships, market presence and competitor position.

Explore Supplier Intelligence →

Tell us what you need to find, verify or keep track of

Start with the information gap, source type, organisation group, market or change you need to understand. We can shape the right combination of human research, Oscar data and AI-assisted gathering from there.