You are required to produce a report providing a rapid evidence assessment of one of the following four topics:
- The potential for avoid, shift and improve opportunities to mitigate transport emissions
- The mitigation potential in housing considering three or more of five (technical, political, financial, social and behavioural) barriers.
- Can renewable sources meet global energy demand by 2050?
- A critical appraisal of the contribution to delivering the three key industry mitigation options: fuel switching, energy efficiency and resource efficiency.
A rapid evidence assessment is not a simple literature review. A description of a rapid evidence assessment has been provided below.
Ideally a policy would be informed by a comprehensive systemic review of all the literature however policymakers often have a very short timeframe in which to act. Rapid evidence assessments (REA) are
employed to provide a robust but timely assessment of the literature. For those of you wishing to work in government, you will be required to provide a rapid assessment of the evidence to inform decision making.
Similar skills are required if working for a business or consultancy. This assessment gives you the
necessary skills to conduct such a review.
The stages of a rapid evidence assessment have been given below: - Devise a clear and focused question. The aim of a REA is to provide a short but systematic assessment on a constrained topic. This requires a concise question that can be answered with the time available. The research question must map onto the existing research. You must formulate a question from the topics above. You cannot select a different question.
- Provide a robust rationale for the question. Your introduction should include a coherent argument on why the topic is important and why you have selected an appropriate question. Is your assessment particularly useful for a specific policy initiative or assessment of previous schemes?
- Describe the method employed. Explain how you undertook the selection of your literature covering the criteria, searching and coding. You can select policy documents, case studies, quantitative assessments and other papers. This is really up to you. It is important that you ensure that you are always addressing the questions you have posed.
- Provide your assessment. Try and find novel ways to document your results. Can you provide a table comparing the different publications? Is a scoring system appropriate to define the relative
role of the different challenges and barriers? Could you produce a figure to summarise your findings. It is also important to provide a nuanced and critical debate about your findings, not just blindly present the results. - Consider the strength of the evidence base considering its consistency, generalizability and applicability.
- Recommendations. Can you provide any suggestions on where there are gaps in the evidence or precise recommendations for policy makers?
