Abstract This article provides an overview of how systematic review (SR) methods have been used to evaluate public policy. It argues that these methods can be applied to the evaluation of environmental public policy, but that certain challenges need to be addressed in order to fulfil the SR methods potential. The article reflects upon two methodological challenges confronting systematic reviewers: how data from the articles should be synthesised; and how to take societal contexts into account. Analysing how these challenges have been addressed in practice contributes to the theoretical discussion about the usefulness of different synthesis methods, and the role of context. Three lessons are drawn as to how systematic review methods can become useful when applied to the evaluation of environmental public policy, namely: (1) to anticipate the heterogeneity in the literature from the beginning – in terms of both research design and operationalisation of key concepts; (2) to consider the purpose of the review when deciding whether to take a single- or multi-context approach; and (3) to be methodologically innovative when applying the systematic review methods to complex policies.

中文翻译：

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使用系统评价方法评估环境公共政策：方法论挑战和潜在效用

摘要 本文概述了如何使用系统评价 (SR) 方法来评估公共政策。它认为这些方法可以应用于环境公共政策的评估，但需要解决某些挑战才能实现 SR 方法的潜力。这篇文章反映了系统评价者面临的两个方法论挑战：如何综合文章中的数据；以及如何考虑社会背景。分析如何在实践中解决这些挑战有助于对不同合成方法的有用性和上下文的作用进行理论讨论。关于系统审查方法在应用于环境公共政策评估时如何变得有用，可以得出三个教训，即：(1) 从一开始就预测文献的异质性——在研究设计和关键概念的操作方面；(2) 在决定采用单语境还是多语境方法时考虑审查的目的；(3) 在将系统评价方法应用于复杂政策时，在方法上创新。