To support your work with high-quality evidence, I identify relevant, rigorous knowledge on your enquiry, and I present you the key findings clearly, in easy-to-use, concise reports that I send you swiftly. For example, for a simple report based on English-language searches, I will typically send you the document two weeks after we have confirmed your query.
To conduct my research, I search academic, practitioner, and policy sources. I can conduct searches in multiple languages: English, French, Spanish, German, and Arabic.
I can also identify specialists on your issue and ask them for confidential comments and suggestions, if you give me permission to do so. When selecting from the pool of specialists on your issue, I pay attention to gender balance and geographic diversity, so that you hear from a range of voices.
I have 10 years of experience in providing such rapid-response syntheses of evidence, on topics ranging from violent conflicts,and humanitarian issues, to social development and political issues. These reports, topic guides, and literature reviews, were tailor-made to answer queries from the British and Australian
aid agencies (FCDO - formerly DFID - and DFAT), from the European Commission, and from Canada's
International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada). To provide this knowledge helpdesk service, I have usually worked through the Institute for Development Studies, in the UK.
I have
received
excellent
feedback
for my work from the commissioning advisers and contributing
experts involved.
My helpdesk reports have also been cited and used well beyond the commissioning agencies, being picked up among others by academic specialists, and by aid practitioners and activists in the North and the South.
You can find out more by clicking on the categories below, for an overview of the syntheses I can provide you.
For direct access to my published Helpdesk reports, have a look at my academia.edu page.
The academia.edu page shows the reports that commissioning agencies allowed me to make public. I can provide a full list of the titles of my publications upon request (though of course I will not communicate confidential reports, nor any details about the query and commissioning agency for these).