Research

Transforming how we understand and share research

We do evidence synthesis, and we work on making it better. That means improving how reviews are planned, carried out and shared, with a focus on rapid reviews, knowledge translation and Studies Within a Review (SWARs). We produce evidence for policy and practice, and we push for good evidence to be used when decisions are made.

We produce commissioned reviews supporting evidence-informed policy nationally and internationally, for the Department of Health, the World Health Organisation, and the EU Commission.

SWAR

There remain uncertainties on many methodological aspects of how we plan, do and share evidence syntheses. Designing studies that evaluate evidence synthesis methodology is necessary to ensure that evidence synthesis is efficient and sustainable. Our ‘Studies Within A Review’ (SWAR) programme of research is an exciting way to evaluate alternative options when conducting a review process (e.g. study selection, data extraction, reporting the findings) to provide much-needed evidence about how these steps in the review processes can be improved. This has the potential to reduce research waste and improve the usefulness of systematic reviews.

Our Projects

Evidence to Policy

Our evidence to policy work strengthens the systems, capacity and partnerships that enable research evidence to be used routinely and effectively in policy decision-making. This includes a Rapid Evidence Support System Assessment (RESSA) of health policymaking in Ireland, capacity-building with the civil service, and engagement with the global Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure Collaborative.

PRIORITY III

We led the Priority III project, which gives a research agenda for primary methodology work on how we plan, do and share findings of rapid reviews. Parallel to this, we are exploring the views and experiences of public and patient involvement in the Priority III project.

World Health Organisation

Evidence Synthesis Ireland and Cochrane Ireland have and continue to produce evidence syntheses for the World Health Organisation.

EU Projects

HaDEA

Systematic Reviews Of Scientific Evidence On Vaccines And Capacity Building Activities for the EU Commission’s Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA).

Vaccelerate

Vaccelerate is a clinical research network for the coordination and conduct of COVID-19 vaccine trials.

Pro-EDI

In collaboration with Trial Forge (lead – Aberdeen; collaborators Cochrane and Campbell Collaboration), we developed the PRO-EDI tool to operationalise the assessment of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in systematic reviews, which we hope will help ensure that evidence synthesis pays more attention to who is – and who isn’t – involved.

COVID-19

During COVID-19, we focused our resources on prioritised COVID-19 activities to support healthcare policy and practice decision making in Ireland and beyond.