Knowledge that Transforms

Despite increasing concerns about the validity of published research, the issue of how the scientific community can maintain a high-quality body of research is not well understood. We consider the case of systematic reviews in health care, and explore whether risk of bias ratings communicated within these reviews may help shift scientists’ attention towards published research that is at a low risk of bias. We focus on publications deemed at risk of bias due to selective reporting; that is, scientific articles with high chances of systematic errors in the published research findings due to flaws in the reporting. Using a matched-sample control group we find that, after potential bias is signalled in systematic reviews, publications at high risk of bias attract less attention – as indicated by fewer follow-on citations – when compared to a control group of low risk of bias publications. We extend our analysis by considering those cases where risk of bias is unclear, and by examining how different features of the rating system may affect the magnitude of the main effect. The findings provide evidence about whether systematic reviews can play a role in signalling biases in the scientific literature, over and above their established role of synthesising prior research.

Recent literature has turned considerable attention to the role of policy mixes in shaping socio-technical systems towards sustainability. However, the identification of relevant policy intervention points has remained a relatively neglected topic. This is a potentially significant oversight given that such intervention points constitute a mid-step between means (particular policy instruments) and overall goals (change in the directionality of socio-technical systems). By complementing existing work on policy mixes with additional insights from transitions literature, this paper formulates a conceptual framework of six policy intervention points for transformative systems change. The coding scheme developed on the basis of this framework is used to review current literature on policy mixes in sustainability transitions. It is shown that the latter has so far primarily focused on niche-regime dynamics while largely neglecting the broader context of these interactions. We argue that adopting a wider perspective on intervention points can aid future work on policy mixes by enabling the identification of root causes and critical problems of ongoing transitions, and to spot gaps in existing policy activities. The case of the Estonian energy system is used to briefly illustrate these possibilities. Methodologically, we demonstrate the value of combining theory-based concept-formation with a systematic literature review, enabling not only a provision of a summary of existing literature but also highlighting systematic gaps in that literature.