Table 1 Stakeholders and suggested actions to facilitate synthesis in preclinical research

Researchers

• Pre-register study protocols

• Publish step-by-step methods protocols

• Follow appropriate reporting guidelines

• Publish all results (including neutral and negative results)

• Make data and analysis code openly available in machine-readable formats, using field-specific repositories, where available

• Utilise preprint servers for making research available in a timely manner

• Use community-endorsed documentation and metadata standards including common data elements (CDEs) and ontologies

Evidence synthesists

• Engage with stakeholders to improve how evidence summaries are curated and visualised for different audiences

• Develop and integrate automated tools to streamline and improve the accessibility of evidence synthesis research

Institutional support

• Provide open science and research data management training

• Support synthesis-related infrastructures e.g., as core facilities

Publishers, journals & editorial

• Support protocol publishing formats e.g., Registered Reports

• Mandate adherence to best reporting practices

• Automated reporting quality checks to support peer-review

• Require raw data deposition and perform data veracity and analysis script checks

• Support publication formats and practices that allow linking of related research artefacts

• Participate in research to improve reporting quality and data sharing

Funders

• Require a systematic summary of the field with appropriate evidence synthesis techniques, prior to funding new research

• Call for protocols and data management plans at grant submission and provide appropriate evaluation

• Provide appropriate funding to maintain good data management and sharing practices throughout the lifecycle of a project

• Implications for non-compliance with transparent reporting and data sharing

• Sustainable funding of research and synthesis infrastructure e.g., databases

Database & infrastructure providers

• Adequate linkage formats for protocols, data, analysis code, preprints and publications

• Endorse and facilitate the use of domain-specific or domain-agnostic metadata standards for non-experts

Policymakers & regulators

• Build a legislative framework for EU based research to facilitate faster implementation of the proposed elements

• Legal responsibility for institutions and researchers for not depositing and sharing all data gathered during research cycles

• Mandating open data for every publicly funded animal experiment

Coordinated efforts

• Support for open science practices at every stage of the research lifecycle

• Platforms to enable open discussions across multiple stakeholders

• Community-led decisions on data ontologies and standards

• A culture of data sharing, reuse, and synthesis