Back to: Introduction to Evidence Synthesis

These are the types of people who often work together to conduct a systematic review. Depending on your resources, you might have the same person filling several of these roles:

Project lead/methods expert
This person oversees the process and has expertise in the methods for conducting a systematic review. In some cases you might have two people fill this role- a project lead and a methods expert.

Statistician/quantitative expert
Your team should include someone with expertise in analyzing data. In some cases, your methods expert will fill this role.

Librarian
You’ll need a librarian to help you design your “search strategy.” This involves everything from using the right search terms in electronic databases to knowing what databases and sources to use. In some cases, your methods expert can fill this role.

Clinical/subject area experts
These people are experts on the question you’re exploring. They help you understand the general landscape of research on this topic and evaluate which research is relevant. They can also help you frame your research question and interpret your findings so your results are relevant to decision makers.

Research assistant(s)
Research assistants do a lot of the intensive labor for a systematic review. Their tasks include data extraction, literature screening, data analysis, and strength of evidence/risk of bias assessments.