“Xapien has been a complete step change.”

– Ben Heath, Director of Compliance and Assurance for Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford

Background

The Nuffield Department of Medicine (NDM) is one of Oxford University’s largest departments, spanning 24 institutes, centres, and units across the UK, Asia, Africa, and South America. From developing COVID-19 vaccines to managing thousands of international grants, its work saves and improves millions of lives. With this global reach comes a challenge: ensuring that every donor, partner, and collaborator is trustworthy.

The challenge

Before Xapien, due diligence at NDM drew on desk-based research, internal expertise, and academic networks. These processes, whilst thorough, were resource-intensive and a challenge to apply consistently across a large and globally distributed portfolio of partners. For overseas research, accessing relevant information could be complex and time-intensive, particularly when information was captured in several different languages.

NDM operates within a regulated and evolving compliance environment, including anti-money laundering, anti-bribery, and ethical standards relating to non-discrimination and labour practices. These are also increasingly required by funders and partners.

On one occasion, a shortlist of 35 institutions needed reviewing: an enormous task with traditional processes.

Where Xapien steps in

NDM first turned to Xapien during a major pandemic-response project, involving donors and partners across multiple countries.

The introduction of Xapien was instrumental in enabling a more standardised and time-efficient approach to due diligence. By drawing on millions of sources worldwide, Xapien supported more consistent checks across jurisdictions. In minutes, Xapien surfaces relevant information across 200+ languages, giving NDM a way to do thorough, rapid checks at scale.

“Xapien’s ability to surface content from around the world was very powerful for us.”

– Ben Heath

Instead of spending hours on manual searches, compliance teams are able to generate a structured, fully sourced report in minutes. Potential links to sanctions, controversies, and financial crime are flagged upfront, with the option to dig deeper where needed. The easy-to-use interface means new users get up to speed in just 10 minutes, even international partners.

Reports are used to brief researchers and principal investigators before they commit to new collaborations. The insights feed directly into decision-making, helping NDM assess whether potential partners align with their mission, values, and regulatory requirements.

The impact

For NDM, Xapien has contributed to a transformative shift in assurance:

  • Supporting global trust: Access to sources in 200+ languages improves confidence when assessing partners in higher-risk regions.
  • From days to minutes: Research that once took days is now ready in minutes.
  • Clearer judgement: Faster access to data allows more time to weigh risk against opportunity.

As the Director of Compliance and Assurance summed up:

“With Xapien, you are more informed to make the right decision.”

Xapien has become an important tool for NDM, giving the Compliance and Assurance team confidence that partnership decisions are supported with thorough, transparent due diligence.