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Four principles to make evidence synthesis more useful for policy

Reward the creation of analyses for policymakers that are inclusive, rigorous, transparent and accessible, urge Christl A. Donnelly and colleagues.
  1. Christl A. Donnelly

    1. Christl A. Donnelly is professor of statistical epidemiology at Imperial College London, UK.

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  2. Ian Boyd

    1. Ian Boyd is chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London, UK.

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  3. Philip Campbell

    1. Philip Campbell is editor-in-chief at Nature.

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  4. Claire Craig

    1. Claire Craig is chief science policy officer at The Royal Society, London, UK.

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  5. Patrick Vallance

    1. Patrick Vallance is government chief scientific adviser, London, UK.

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  6. Mark Walport

    1. Mark Walport is chief executive of UK Research and Innovation, London, UK.

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  7. Christopher J. M. Whitty

    1. Christopher J. M. Whitty is chief scientific adviser at the Department for Health and Social Care, London, UK.

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  8. Emma Woods

    1. Emma Woods is head of policy and wellbeing at the Royal Society, London, UK.

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  9. Chris Wormald

    1. Chris Wormald is permanent secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care, and head of the Policy Profession, London, UK.

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To help address rising childhood obesity, researchers from Australia, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom collated and systematically analysed 55 studies, together involving tens of thousands of children. The result was one of the most influential medical reviews1. It has been cited nearly 1,500 times since its publication in 2011, following nearly two years of work.

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Nature 558, 361-364 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05414-4

References

  1. Waters, E. et al. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. CD001871 (2011).

  2. Grimes, R. W., Chamberlain, Y. & Oku, A. Sci. Diplomacy 3, 2 (2014).

  3. Sutherland, W. J. & Burgman, M. Nature 526, 317–318 (2015).

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  5. Royal Society. Machine Learning: The Power and Promise of Computers that Learn by Example (Royal Society, 2017).

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  6. Fiorella, K., L. Chen, R., Milner, E. & Fernald, L. Glob. Food Secur. 8, 39–47 (2016).

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  7. UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Defra Group Areas of Research Interest (DEFRA, 2017).

  8. UK Government. The What Works Network: Five Years On (UK Government, 2018).

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Supplementary Information

  1. Principles for good evidence synthesis for policy

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