There are many existing networks dedicated to connecting global evidence producers and users. Many education evidence programmes, often funded by partners in the Global North, have teams working within country contexts. These teams usually have their own mechanisms for connecting evidence producers and users. In the broader evidence architecture, EdLabs and evidence units in governments play a key role in ensuring better utilisation of global evidence by users in local contexts. Communities of practice are also vital for bridging different stakeholders, such as government officials, researchers, funders, and practitioners. These communities and the working groups within them are important mechanisms for improving the links between producers and users.
Additionally, there is significant work being done around evidence databases, which organisations like What Works Hub are championing. These databases help classify and categorise evidence, making it easily accessible and searchable, often based on country or other categories. Capacity-building efforts, such as training programmes and professional networks, further help educators and policymakers engage with and implement evidence-based practices. Digital platforms and repositories, including the EPPI and Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel, facilitate knowledge sharing and rapid access to relevant studies. Ultimately, though, the most effective mechanism depends on the specific context of the country. The tools we deploy need to be relevant to the local situation to ensure they’re truly effective.
Ensuring that the questions of local policymakers inform global evidence syntheses requires a deliberate and collaborative approach. Engagement platforms where policymakers can directly communicate their needs to researchers are crucial. Collaborative research models should involve local stakeholders from the beginning to ensure that their concerns and priorities are central to the research agenda. Feedback mechanisms, such as periodic consultations or review sessions, should allow users of global evidence to provide input on its relevance and applicability. Additionally, the producers of global evidence syntheses need to be proactive in seeking out local input and adapting their findings to address specific regional contexts. This two-way interaction can create a more dynamic and responsive evidence ecosystem
The table below presents a few examples of existing mechanisms that aim to improve the connections between the global evidence synthesis producers and users.
| Mechanism/Initiative | Delivery Institution | Description |
| EPPI | University College London, UK | The Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre) is a research organisation based at University College London (UCL). It specialises in systematic reviews and evidence synthesis to inform policy and practice across various sectors, including education, health, social policy, and international development. |
| Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP) | World Bank | Launched in July 2020, the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP) is an independent, cross-disciplinary body composed of leading education experts from around the world. Its mandate is to provide succinct, usable, and policy-focused recommendations to support policymakers’ decision-making on education investments in low- and middle-income countries. |
| What Works Hub | Blavatnik School of Government (University of Oxford), the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the British Council, Building Evidence in Education (BE2), the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP), the Learning Generation Initiative, USAID, UNICEF Innocenti, UNESCO-IIEP, the World Bank and the Jacobs Foundation. | The What Works Hub for Global Education is an international partnership working out how to implement education reforms at scale, with the ultimate goal of increasing literacy, numeracy and other key skills in low- and middle-income countries. |
| EdLabs | Jacobs Foundation | EdLabs are dynamic hubs that foster innovation and evidence-informed decision-making in education. They work to bridge the divide between global and local education systems. |
| Education Endowment Fund | Education Endowment Fund, UK | The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) plays a key role in synthesising and translating research evidence to guide schools and policymakers in adopting effective teaching strategies. Through its flagship initiative, the Teaching and Learning Toolkit, the EEF provides schools with accessible summaries of research, offering insights into the cost, impact, and security of various educational practices. This toolkit has become a trusted resource for schools worldwide, helping educators make informed decisions about how to allocate resources, including pupil premium funding. |
| Q-Project, Monash University, Australia | Monash University, Australia | It was a research project that investigated how research evidence is used in schools, and how to support educators to better use that evidence in their practice. |
| The Luker Foundation | Fundación Luker, Colombia | Fundación Luker, based in Manizales, Colombia, has been at the forefront of addressing structural issues in education for over 30 years. Rather than traditional philanthropy, their approach treats Manizales as a “social learning lab” where local stakeholders—schools, teachers, parents, and government—collaborate to improve educational outcomes, particularly in reading, mathematics, and social-emotional learning. Through programs like Aprendamos a Leer and Escuela Activa, the foundation implements evidence-based interventions tailored to the local context, ensuring they are both effective and sustainable. Their overarching goal is to develop replicable, scalable models that can be transferred to other municipalities across Colombia. |
| E-base Africa | E-base Africa, Cameroon | Based in Cameroon, they use storytelling to translate evidence in a compelling way. They combine rigorous systematic reviews based on global evidence with localised translation methods. Instead of presenting technical reports, they share findings through oral storytelling with local stakeholders, making the evidence more accessible and actionable. |
| SUMMA | Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Fundación Chile. | This is a knowledge hub for Latin America and the Caribbean. They focus on embedding evidence directly into policy reforms, considering the political landscape in Chile, and working closely with the government. Both organisations engage policymakers in the evidence-generation process. They also use evaluation funding to improve the understanding of government policies. These are two contrasting examples, but both emphasise building strong relationships with key stakeholders. |
| UK Area of Research Interest (ARI) | UK Government | UK ARI sees all government departments producing, publishing and updating a list of priority research topics, in order to create a cross-government set of priorities, including at the local level. |
| Parliamentary research week | Parliament of UK and also held in the Uganda, Austria, Canada and Ghana | Pioneered by the Parliament of Uganda and also held in the UK, Austria, Canada and Ghana, offer spaces for MPs to engage with research and evidence-production organisations from across the local ecosystem |
| Semana de la Evidencia | OTT, Evidence Hub for Latin America and the Caribbean (Hub LAC) | Semana de la Evidencia (‘evidence week’) in Latin America is a platform that brings together various interested parties dedicated to exchanging experiences in the field of evidence-informed policy. It aims to promote the use of evidence in public policy and improve the conversation between decision-makers and researchers. The evidence week started as a Peruvian initiative in 2016 and generated interest across the region. |
| Brookings FSCE (Family, School, Community Engagement) | Brookings Institution, US | The Brookings Institution’s Family, School, and Community Engagement (FSCE) initiative, part of the Center for Universal Education, focuses on building strong partnerships among families, schools, and communities to enhance student learning and development. |
| Building Tomorrow | Building Tomorrow, Uganda | Building Tomorrow is a non-profit organisation based in Uganda that focuses on improving educational outcomes for underserved communities by engaging community members, recent university graduates, and volunteers in creating and supporting sustainable educational programs. Building Tomorrow’s work is centred around its Roots to Rise program, which is inspired by the Teaching at the Right Level (TARL) methodology and emphasises community involvement in solving the education challenges that local communities face. |
| D3E, Brazil | Stanford University, US | The Disseminating Evidence-based Policy Research (D3E) project, affiliated with the Lemann Center at Stanford University, focuses on key issues in Brazilian education. The project plans to produce reports and host events assessing the role of new technologies in enhancing school and student performance. |
| Africa Evidence Network | Pan African Collective Evidence | AEN is a community of researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders committed to advancing evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) across Africa. |
| Education Evidence Network | Queen Rania Foundation, SUMMA, E-base Africa, Evidence for Learning, Leer Punt, Education Review Office, Education Endowment Fund, La caixa Foundation, NRO, Llywodraeth Cymru Welsh Government | EEN is a global collaborative initiative dedicated to improving educational equity by promoting the use of high-quality evidence in teaching and learning. The network aims to make research findings accessible to educators and policymakers, enabling them to implement effective strategies that benefit disadvantaged children and young people. |
| NORRAG | Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland | NORRAG is a global network focused on international education and development policies. NORRAG works to bridge the gap between research, policy, and practice by facilitating dialogue and knowledge exchange among policymakers, researchers, and practitioners worldwide. |
| FLN Hub Africa | UNICEF, J-PAL, Pratham & Delivery Associates | This is a resource hub that provides guidance on improving an education system’s capacity to deliver on children’s foundational learning success. |
| Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) | UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) | RISE is a global research initiative focused on understanding how education systems can be reformed to improve learning outcomes, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Launched in 2015, it aims to go beyond individual interventions and examine system-level changes that can drive sustainable improvements in education. |
| Global Coalition for Evidence | World Health Organisation (WHO) | This is a WHO informal collaborative network of stakeholder organisations, united by a common goal to strengthen the global evidence ecosystem to improve health and well-being throughout the world. It aims to leverage the collective expertise and resources of its members to foster the integration of different evidence ecosystem workstreams and advance the institutionalisation of evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) globally. |
| KIX Hub | Global Partnership for Education, IDRC | KIX helps lower-income countries identify and close knowledge gaps, strengthen their ability to use knowledge, and bring innovations to scale so that more children get a quality education. KIX works to build the capacity of education actors to produce, integrate and scale knowledge and innovation in partner countries. |
| Smartbuys Report | GEEAP | The ‘Smart Buys’ report is an evidence-based tool designed to improve learning outcomes through identifying cost-effective approaches to education around the world. |