Production of Evidence Syntheses for the Evidence Synthesis Programme

Evidence synthesis has become a critical tool for evidence-based health over the last 40 years. It routinely underpins clinical guidelines, policy, commissioning/ reimbursement decisions and individual decisions by professionals and the public. The University of Bristol wishes to host an NIHR Evidence Synthesis Group (ESG) to undertake evidence syntheses for the NIHR Evidence Synthesis Programme. We are one of the principal evidence synthesis groups in the UK and internationally. We have vast experience and expertise across different types of evidence review and across areas of application in health care, social care and public health. Our ESG brings together staff from major NIHR infrastructure including our membership of all three NIHR Research Schools, creating an ideal environment for undertaking and disseminating impactful evidence syntheses for NIHR. We have considerable command of review methodologies across the review production process. Most team members have interests in methodological development as well as applied evidence syntheses. Our group has made substantial contributions to the evidence synthesis toolkit, and we co-wrote or co-edited major texts about how to do evidence syntheses for Cochrane, NICE and others. We are experienced not only in undertaking rigorous systematic reviews but also in other types of evidence review including living reviews, scoping reviews, overviews of reviews, rapid reviews, reviews of economic evidence and reviews of qualitative evidence. Our networks of content experts and policy and practice stakeholders are extensive and relevant. We have convened an Advisory Board for our ESG including representatives from our local NIHR Clinical Research Network, Academic Health Sciences Network, Bristol City Council as well as major local NIHR-funded research centres. Through this and our other networks we will identify content expertise to support us in each synthesis. We have a highly successful, joined-up approach to involvement of patients and the public, through the People in Health West of England initiative. We will form a public advisory group for each evidence synthesis we undertake, formed from public contributors with service use experience relevant to the topic of the synthesis. Our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion informs our working practices and our research, and we will work hard to ensure representation from underserved communities on these advisory groups. Our lead for patient/public involvement is piloting the creation of ‘health research ambassadors’ to bridge the gap between underserved communities and the research world, and we will draw on these. We will engage with other stakeholders too, including policy makers and guidelines developers, from the early stages of each project. This will help us identify targets for dissemination and help ensure our findings are meaningfully expressed and reach their intended audiences.