An Introduction to Systematic Reviews

David Gough is Professor of Evidence Informed Policy and Practice and the Director of SSRU and its EPPI-Centre. Prior to this he was senior research fellow at the University of Glasgow and professor at Japan Women’s University. His early research focused on child welfare policy including roles in the international, British and Japanese societies for the prevention of child abuse and being Co-Editor of Child Abuse Review. His interest in the study of research synthesis and research use started in 1988 by developing coding guidelines to systematically describe and assess the child abuse intervention literature. He also studies evidence use including starting the EIPPEE network, the Science of Using Science project and the experimental evaluation of the RISE project to encourage evidence use in schools. He is Co-Managing Editor of the journal Evidence and Policy.

Sandy Oliver is Professor of Public Policy at UCL Institute of Education and Deputy Director of SSRU and its EPPI-Centre. For twenty five years her interests have focused on the interaction between researchers and people making decisions in their professional and personal lives. With this in mind she has been developing methods to collate knowledge from whole bodies of research – systematic reviews – not just single studies. Most recently this has been in the area of international development where she has conducted systematic reviews and built up a programme of support for research teams conducting reviews elsewhere. She works with DFID and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at WHO to build capacity in systematic reviewing in developing countries.

James Thomas is a Professor in Social Policy, Assistant Director of SSRU and Associate Director of the EPPI-Centre He directs the EPPI-Centre's Reviews Facility for the Department of Health, England, and undertakes systematic reviews across a range of policy areas. He has specialized in developing methods for research synthesis, in particular for qualitative and mixed methods reviews and in using emerging information technologies in research. He leads a module on synthesis and critical appraisal on the EPPI-Centre's MSc in Evidence for Public Policy and Practice and development on the Centre's in-house reviewing software, EPPI-Reviewer.