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Why is agri-food research important?

The Centre for Evidence-Based Agriculture ‘synthesises’ existing agri-food evidence to support decision-making in policy, industry, practice and research.

In order to make an evidence-informed decision, decision makers often need to know: ‘What information already exists?’, ‘What works?’, ‘What is the quality of the evidence?’, ‘Where do we need further research?’

For many policy, and industry professionals, it can be difficult to use existing evidence to answer these questions, due to lack of access to research, and limited time and expertise to gather, collate and evaluate evidence.

At the CEBA we use structured ‘evidence synthesis’ methods to collate and evaluate existing research to support decisions.The CEBA is an interdisciplinary centre & we work widely with external partners to address real-world questions relating to agri-food, the wider environment and related socio-ecomomic issues.

Evidence syntheses can vary in their scope and methodology and are influenced by the type of question being addressed and also by the timescale available.