Government Social Research
The increasing prominence of evidence-based principles has led to a need for Government departments and agencies to have ways of accessing, harnessing and using the best available research evidence for effective policy making – and the first step in this is to review what is already known. While existing evidence is clearly not the only source of information available to policy-makers, it is an obvious and vitally important strategy to determine what is already known about the issue in question.
This ‘knowledge economy’ that has developed in recent years, however, has created a number of problems in terms of potential volume and quality of existing work. As Davies (2003) notes:
‘The sheer amount of potential research evidence in most substantive areas of social science and public policy, coupled with the rapid growth of access to knowledge and information as a result of information technology, make it almost impossible to keep abreast of the research literature in any one area. ….
This problem of interpreting the results of a multitude of separate but similar studies has led to the creation of a method of knowledge management called reviewing. The ‘science of reviewing’ is not, however, a new phenomenon, and has been developing over the past 100 years or so. Nevertheless, notable developments towards a more systematic approach have occurred in the past 30 years.
Reviewing evidence properly takes time, but there are various techniques that can be used. This toolkit will help researchers to identify whether a Rapid Evidence Assessment is best for their needs, and help with the process of planning and carrying out a review.
Methods for reviewing evidence