ABSTRACT
Introduction and Concepts Systematic reviews, meta-analysis, meta-evaluation, and related con-
cepts have achieved international attention and dissemination as a new form of evaluation and knowledge production since the early 1990s. There is no commonly agreed use of concepts in the area, but we will use the term “systematic reviews” as the general term for summaries of existing evaluations and works of research which are prepared with the purpose of clarifying, for example, whether interventions work in relation to given social problems, what results a particular form of teaching achieves, or what effects certain forms of activation have in relation to getting people out of unemployment. The knowledge which is produced through the compilation of systematic reviews is often designated as evidence. The purpose of producing evidence is to promote well-informed decisions about policy and practice development.
