Background: Having mapped the nature, scope, and quality of evidence syntheses on COVID-19 to explore the relationship between review quality and the extent of researcher, policy, and media interest, we found low quality reviews being published at pace, often with short publication turnarounds. Poorly conducted systematic reviews can lead to inaccurate representations of the evidence, misleading conclusions, and reduced applicability, limiting their usefulness and ultimately contributing to research waste. Everyone in the research community (researchers, peer-reviewers, journal editors, funders, decision makers, clinicians, journalists, and the public) can help facilitate the conduct of robust systematic reviews that are published and communicated in a timely manner, reducing research waste and increasing the transparency and accessibility of all systematic reviews.
Objectives: - To highlight some of the key issues around the quality and volume of evidence synthesis research published. - To discuss potential solutions to these issues. - To prepare action plans to make changes to personal or organisational ways of working to implement solutions/tackle the key issues moving forward in practice.
Description: This 90-minute workshop will consist of: - A brief (10 min) presentation to outline the key issues identified from the research. - The audience will be split into small groups (we will aim for each group to include a mix of perspectives represented e.g., researcher, peer reviewer, publishers, and members of the public where possible). Each group will have a different issue and potential solutions to focus on and discuss. The discussion will be based around what changes individuals can make to help improve/resolve the issues highlighted and noting down achievable steps as part of a personal plan (20-30 mins). - The audience will then be asked to regroup into groups representing similar perspectives and continue to discuss the issues and solutions that could be made at an organisational level (relevant to their background/perspective) and again noting down potentially achievable steps (20-30 mins). - The final 20-30 mins will be used to share individual and organisational plans and encourage people to make an action plan at a personal and/or organisational level to facilitate change.