Informing policy-making with systemic reviews and evidence gap maps

Abstract

This policy brief introduces systematic reviews and evidence gap maps as two relatively new types of synthesised evidence. It explains why these synthesis tools are particularly valuable for the policy-making processes. It offers a brief history of their development, their main characteristics and procedures, as well as the main resources where they are found. In addition, it describes current production levels and usage of these synthesis tools in South Africa, and concludes with a call for greater attention and use of these tools to improve research evidence availability in the policy-making processes.