[Re: https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/open-access-21-open-access-and-availabi... ]
Dear colleagues
Thanks, Neil, for flagging these issues.
Ensuring that research evidence is available open access was an important point of discussion within the Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure Collaborative (ESIC) deliberations and part of the ESIC roadmap is looking at how to provide ‘open reusable data’ that can be incorporated into workflows for decision support products such as systematic reviews and evidence briefs for policymaking. Linked to this, ESIC also recommended that ‘Knowledge Hubs’ to established to 'offer streamlined access to multiple ESIC partner databases for evidence producers and intermediaries from diverse disciplines’. This is described in more detail in the ESIC Roadmap that is available here: https://evidencesynthesis.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ESE/pages/243138561/...
These are really positive steps and it looks like some major research funders are getting behind these proposals (see https://www.evidencesic.org/). It would be great to discuss how HIFA members could get involved in and contribute to these developments.
In relation to your question on what do we mean by ‘high quality evidence’, I think for evidence users this should ideally be evidence syntheses that are relevant to their questions, well conducted, timely and that deliver findings in forms that can be understood, packaged (for instance, into frameworks to inform guidelines and other decisions) and acted on by a range of stakeholders. I would want to see the whole evidence pipeline being open access, but I think it particularly important for evidence synthesis products to be open access as these are critical components for informing decision making.
Best
Simon
HIFA profile: Simon Lewin is a health systems researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) (https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/simon.lewin), the South African Medical Research Council (www.mrc.ac.za) and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (https://www.fhi.no/en/kn/ceir/). He has a keen interest in how research evidence can be used to inform decisions for health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and at the global level in multilateral organisations such as the WHO. As Co-Lead of Cochrane People, Health Systems and Public Health, he has played a key role in strengthening Cochrane’s work in the field of health systems and in developing Cochrane methods for qualitative evidence synthesis. Cochrane is a HIFA supporting organisation and Simon is a member of three HIFA working groups: CHWs; mHealth-Innovate (informal use of mobile phones by health workers) and Support-Systems - How can decision-making processes for health systems strengthening and universal health coverage be made more inclusive, responsive and accountable? https://www.hifa.org/support/members/simon Email: simon.lewin AT ntnu.no