Jessica Hagen-Zanker, Maren Duvendack, Richard Mallett, Rachel Slater, Samuel Carpenter, Mathieu Tromme
ODI Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium, 2012; Briefing Paper 1
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Investigation into where systematic reviews add value to development research and where they become problematic. In the context of donors’ interest in systematic reviews and their effectiveness as a tool for evidence-informed policy making, this briefing demonstrates that:
- Using systematic review principles can help researchers improve the rigour and breadth of literature reviews
- Conducting a full systematic review is a resource intensive process and involves a number of practical challenges
- Systematic reviews should be viewed as a means to finding a robust and sensible answer to a focused research question
