Use the live research desk
Choose an intervention and inspect its linked sources, then use the review desk to define a question, search and selection rules. Save an extraction for each study, record bias and uncertainty, and write a synthesis that preserves disagreement. A completed form is a research note, not an independent evidence review.
Your workspace stays in this browser. Save records, edit them or fork frozen versions, export JSON, a research memo or CSV, and import a backup with an explicit replacement step. Deleting or clearing offers an undo while the page remains open. No notes are submitted to Charitology. The institutional goals below remain the program’s longer-term charter.
What it is
A systematic review gathers the good studies on a question, judges how strong each one is and reports what they show together. Evidence Reviews applies that discipline to the interventions charity pays for, and publishes each review in the Intervention Database.
How it works
Every review follows one format. It says what the intervention does and how it is supposed to work. It grades the evidence as strong, moderate, mixed, weak or unknown. And it records where the work sits on the depth scale, how soon its effects arrive, how long they last and who designed it: the community, the community with outside experts, or outsiders alone. Where cost data exists, the review gives a cost range with its date and source.
The program builds on reviews that already exist instead of redoing them. Cochrane, a global network of health researchers, professionals, patients and carers, publishes systematic reviews in health. The Campbell Collaboration produces evidence syntheses for economic and social policy. Where one of their reviews covers an intervention, Evidence Reviews summarizes it in plain language and links to it. Where none exists, contributors write a lighter review and say so.
Why it matters for the system
The Measurement Gap concerns the difference between counting activity and estimating its effects. A small charity may benefit from evaluation partners and shared research. If a good review shows that an intervention works in settings like its own, the charity can borrow that knowledge instead of building it from scratch. Shared reviews turn measurement from a cost every organization pays separately into a common good the whole field can use.
Reviews also make the gaps visible. An intervention graded unknown is a finding, and a target for the Replication Program or for new research.
Risks and limits
Evidence from one place doesn’t always carry over to another. Each review should say where its studies were done and who took part, so readers can judge how far the results travel. Reviews also go stale as new studies appear, so each one should say when it was last checked.
What success looks like
Within five years, the most widely funded interventions each have a current, graded review, and donors and charities cite those reviews when they decide what to fund.
Start from the published evidence register
Read an existing intervention and its primary sources, then use it to scope a review. These entries remain editorial drafts; opening a source is not a completed review.
For several studies, save one extraction per study with the same review question. Export all records to keep the selection log and synthesis together. The workspace does not run a literature search or calculate a pooled effect.
Evidence review desk
New recordDefine a reproducible question and search, extract a study, examine its limits and write a synthesis that preserves disagreement.
Your work stays in this browser. Export a backup to move it elsewhere. Entries are your research notes, not verified findings or ratings.