Government Social Research
Last Updated: 16/9/2008
As with other research projects the consideration of whether or not to contract out the research depends on a number of factors, including the availability of resources and skills to carry out the REA. If you are considering contracting out the REA to external researchers this section provides guidance on doing this effectively. You will also have departmental procurement rules that need to be followed.
REAs are conducted to tight timescales and in order for contractors to deliver against these roles and objectives should be clear from the outset. The specification for an REA will need to specify the outputs and purpose of the REA.
The work also needs to engage the interest of research organisations and contractors who you might want to undertake the work. They will often have to juggle existing workloads and priorities in order to undertake the REA, so they will need to be convinced of its value to them. For example, a not infrequent complaint of academics is the difficulty of getting permission to publish their findings. Since publications are of great importance to an academic’s career, they might be encouraged to bid for a piece of work if the commissioning brief states that they will be able to publish their work. You will need to consult your departmental rules on publication first, however.
The tender document needs to clearly state the policy or operational need for the work, the context and timescale. Depending on your department’s procurement rules, you may also be able to give an estimate of the available funding and other resources to complete the REA. Contractors are then able to compete on what they are able to offer, given these constraints.
The amount of detail in the tender will depend on your needs but it should clearly state what stages of the REA you want the contractor to undertake (e.g. all of it, just the searching) and which will be done internally. You will also need to clearly specify the depth, breadth and type of review required. You can leave open those aspects of the work that may require further discussion between contractor and commissioner, such as the conceptual framework, but it is important to get agreement from your procurement team.
The tender should outline the degree of involvement that you and other users expect to have in the project, including specifying how this should happen (such as, meetings at key stages). For example, reviewing the REA protocol developed by the contractor is one stage at which the REA question and methods might be fine-tuned. This will need to be planned and will require contractors to allocate resources, so needs to be described in the tender specification, or negotiated after commissioning.
The ‘User involvement’ section of this Toolkit offers a framework to help manage the process of stakeholder involvement but the process can be time consuming so needs to be specified in the tender.
There are various stages during an REA at which progress can be monitored. The most obvious point is when the studies in the REA have been described, and the team is able to take stock and think about which studies will be included in the final synthesis. It may be that the REA has not found any studies that are relevant. In this case, the decision may need to be taken to stop the work at this point – or for more sensitive searching to be carried out, in the knowledge that the final report may not be ready, or able to answer the question for which it was commissioned. In order for work progress and monitoring to run smoothly, agreement on what to do in particular circumstances should be reached at the beginning of the REA.
It is important that you obtain all the information that the contractor finds at the different stages of the REA (e.g. the completed data extraction forms that describe the individual studies in the REA). This not only provides a audit trail but is useful for future research and can be used to builds up a database of information in the area.
Review clauses in the REA contract set specific times in the project where the work can be stopped. The likelihood of ending up with an REA that finds a very limited number of relevant studies will vary from project to project. In cases in which it is possible, a two-stage contracting process might be advisable, with a ‘map’ commissioned in the first instance – to ensure that relevant research exists – and then a synthesis, once it has been demonstrated that there will be studies to synthesise. This helps to mitigate against the risk of preceding with an REA where there are very few relevant studies to include.