AHRQ has released a  Special Emphasis Notice (SEN) (NOT-HS-17-019) to inform the research community that AHRQ intends to support research designed to develop innovative systematic review methods that address the opportunities and challenges of the current era of data abundance, and make systematic reviews both more efficient and salient to improve the healthcare of Americans.

This SEN is intended to generate new methods for systematic reviews that address the opportunities and challenges of the current era of data abundance and that facilitate the integration of systematic reviews into healthcare decisions. In the past, much of the work in systematic review methodology focused on developing basic evidence synthesis tools, especially reliable and standardized approaches to scoping, searching, assessing, synthesizing, and grading the evidence. There are now widely shared standards for how to conduct a high quality systematic review. The next challenge is developing novel or improved methods that optimize the efficiency, comprehensiveness, and predictive value of systematic reviews.

Further information about this notice is available on the NIH grants website.