We are delighted to announce that PenARC Evidence Synthesis specialists Professor Jo Thompson-Coon, Professor Ruth Garside, Morwenna Rogers, and Alison Bethel are among the University of Exeter team contributing to Mobilising Evidence Through Artificial Intelligence and User-informed Synthesis (METIUS) – a major new UKRI-funded infrastructure project that will reshape how research evidence is gathered, synthesised, and delivered to policymakers globally through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). One of the project’s key strands – the Methods Work Package – is led by Prof Ruth Garside and will focus on developing and enhancing the methods needed to create “living evidence syntheses” that stay up to date and deliver robust, broad scale and timely actionable insights.
What is METIUS?
METIUS, led by Queen’s University Belfast, is a £11.5 million investment funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), with co-funding from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
Whilst there is often a wealth of good quality evidence available, getting the most relevant and up-to-date information to decision makers when they need it can be a challenge. To overcome this barrier, the METIUS project aims to combine cutting-edge AI technologies with human expertise to improve the speed, relevance and accessibility of evidence synthesis to support decision-makers in areas such as education, justice, climate change, international development, and more.
The project fits into a broader global alliance, spearheaded by the UKRI and including the United Nations (UN) as a partner, committed to strengthening capacity for evidence-informed policymaking. This international collaboration has committed $126 million in total to catalyse the production and use of ‘living evidence synthesis’, with the aim of accelerating progress on the UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs). The initiative will build on the UK’s commitment made at the September 2024 UN Summit of the Future to use science and digital technologies to accelerate progress towards the SDGs.
PenARC’s Role: Spotlight on our Evidence Synthesis Team
At PenARC, the Evidence Synthesis Team has long been dedicated to producing high-quality, policy-relevant systematic reviews, evidence maps, and methods research. The inclusion of our team in METIUS brings both local strength and global relevance.
Here is what our researchers will bring to the table:
- Professor Jo Thompson-Coon (Professor of Evidence Synthesis & Health Policy) leads work on evidence synthesis at Exeter. She has extensive experience producing systematic reviews that inform health policy and practice.
- Prof Ruth Garside has a particular interest in using a broad range of evidence to inform complex health and environmental policy and practice issues, in methods of synthesis for qualitative research and in theory led methods of review.
- Morwenna Rogers & Alison Bethel (Information Specialists) brings their expertise in designing and running literature searches across health, education, and environmental research, training others in methods for finding and synthesising evidence, and undertaking methods research in evidence synthesis.
Together, these skills align closely with METIUS’s goals: speeding up evidence synthesis, improving access and relevance, and ensuring outputs are user-friendly for policymakers. Their involvement also strengthens PenARC’s contributions to global efforts to bridge the gap between research and policy.
Why This Matters
Policymakers often face barriers in using evidence: scientific studies are many, dispersed, technical, and may be out of date. METIUS seeks to address these by:
- Producing more rapid, accurate, cost-effective syntheses of evidence.
- Translating complex research into accessible formats.
- Supporting exemplar projects in priority policy areas (education, climate, etc.).
- Building global capacity so that evidence summaries are continuously updated (“living”), enabling timely decision-making.
For PenARC, this is an opportunity to contribute our long-standing strengths in evidence synthesis, information retrieval, and methodological innovation to an initiative with both national and global impact.
What’s Next
The METIUS funding begins from 1st October 2025 and will run for five years.
As METIUS gears up, Ruth, Jo, Morwenna, and Alison will be working on embedding PenARC perspectives and strengths into these developments, helping ensure that the tools developed are usable, robust, and ethically sound.
“This exciting project means we can develop methods for diverse types of evidence to be utilised to their full potential to ensure that decisions are more relevant and meaningful across a range of contexts,” says Professor Ruth Garside
“We are excited that PenARC is part of this transformative effort. Evidence synthesis has always been at the heart of what we do – METIUS gives us the opportunity to scale it up, speed it up, and ensure evidence truly reaches decision-makers when and where it matters,” says Professor Jo Thompson-Coon.
Acknowledgement
This project is funded by UKRI under ESRC and NERC, with co-funding from DSIT. PenARC is proud to be involved in METIUS, alongside national and global partners.
Full details are available here: ukri.org/news/ai-investment-to-transform-global-policy-with-scientific-evidence.