Section 11 About us

11.1 CAMARADES

Since 2005, the Collaborative Approach to Meta-Analysis and Review of Animal Data from Experimental Studies (CAMARADES; CAMARADES website) group have provided training and mentoring to those wishing to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses of data from preclinical studies.

11.2 SyRF

The Systematic Review Facility (SyRF) was developed by CAMARADES with initial funding from the UK National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) to support the application of evidence synthesis techniques to preclinical research. SyRF is a freely available, online platform to extract and store data for systematic reviews of preclinical studies and provides educational resources and guidance on preclinical systematic reviews. SyRF enables researchers to collaborate easily, to efficiently manage projects, to screen and annotate studies for important features, to extract outcome data, and tailor these steps to each project. SyRF has been released with minimum features and continuous development will be required to add functionality guided by user demand and feedback. We welcome any feedback.

11.3 Cite SyRF

If you use SyRF at any stage of your systematic review and meta-analysis please cite our open access paper describing the features of SyRF[1] and the resource identifier (RRID):SCR_018907.

This allows us to track the use of SyRF and provide evidence of use to funders to allow us to continue to provide the SyRF software free of charge.

1. Bahor Z, Liao J, Currie G, et al. Development and uptake of an online systematic review platform: the early years of the CAMARADES Systematic Review Facility (SyRF). BMJ Open Science 2021;5:e100103. doi: 10.1136/bmjos-2020-100103 and the resource identifier (RRID):SCR_018907.