Background and objectives: The overall aim of the training school (TS) is to introduce to the participants the concept of Evidence Based Research (EBR) and support their ability to use existing evidence synthesis to justify, design and place results of the new study in the context of existing knowledge in order to avoid redundant research.
Methods: The TS is targeted at Early Career Investigators and senior Clinical Health Researchers, who are interested in how to perform EBR. Following several working meetings of the group having knowledge of existing courses and training in Systematic reviews, Evidence-Based Medicine/Practice/Healthcare, etc., from various organisations like Cochrane, JBI, GRADE, etc., by analysis of the content of their curricula and by an iterative discussion in the group were designed pilot EBR TS, which were tested in Tartu in 2019 than evolved to synchronous on-line teaching and in the end developed as an asynchronous on-line course on the Moodle and Canvas platforms. The evaluation form for participants was designed and applied and feedback from teachers and facilitators of TS plus feedback from EVidence Based RESearch - EVBRES COST Action Programme Management Group and Core Group were received and analyzed with every new version of TS.
Results: The curriculum and programme of TS were designed and tested. We taught the TS seven times to over 150 successful participants who finished the whole TS. TS is divided into fourteen modules. Each module has its own specific interactive content. The overall rating of TS by our participants was 4.34 on a scale 1 (poor) – 5 (Excellent).
Conclusions: The development of the EBR TS is a significant step in increasing awareness around EBR among researchers, raising the importance of the development of trustworthy and important evidence synthesis and primary research in the context of existing evidence and thus preventing research waste. Consumer involvement: Several colleagues originally inexperienced in EBR or Evidence-Based Practice education were involved in the design of the TS so the TS development was co-informed by their needs in EBR knowledge and skills.