EIDM
Evidence syntheses (rigorous systematic reviews and maps) are a vital part of evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM).
The problem
The continued growth of published research increasingly challenges efficient and timely evidence synthesis.
ESTech
Until now, tools to support evidence synthesis have been developed in isolation, with little collaboration or coordination.
This series
This series is a collection of papers discussing, introducing, and validating evidence synthesis tools and frameworks.
Evidence synthesis is a vital part of evidence-informed decision-making, but the seemingly exponential growth in the volume of research evidence over the last few decades will make efficient evidence synthesis increasingly challenging because of the necessary workloads.
As the appreciation and need for timely and rigorous evidence synthesis continue to grow, so too will the need for tools and frameworks to conduct reviews of expanding evidence bases in an efficient and time-sensitive manner.
Efforts to future-proof evidence synthesis through such Evidence Synthesis Technology (ESTech) have so far been isolated across interested individuals or groups, with no concerted effort to collaborate or build communities of practice in technology production.
We established the Evidence Synthesis Hackathon to stimulate collaboration and the production of Free and Open Source Software and frameworks to support evidence synthesis.
Here, we introduce a special series of papers on ESTech, and invite the readers of Environmental Evidence and Campbell Systematic Reviews to submit manuscripts introducing and validating novel evidence synthesis tools and frameworks.
In order to future-proof evidence synthesis against the evidence avalanche, we believe that we must spark interest in ESTech, reduce redundancy in tool design, collaborate and share capacity in tool production, and reduce inequality in tool accessibility.
