United Kingdom's Overseas Development Institute recently put out a guidance note on a flexible approach the Institute uses when conducting literature reviews in international development research (PDF attached).
The note introduces a more flexible way to think about conducting literature reviews. It discusses shortcomings of existing rigid approaches and challenges of subjectivity when assessing quality of evidence. It calls on researchers to match the approach they use to the research project's needs, and recognize that not all useful research is found in academic journals or on institutional websites however may be harder to find. It ends stating that while the note does promote an approach, it is not meant to produce concrete answers and recommends that researchers continue to re-examine their approaches and stay up to date on best practices.
PDF attached.
Link to guidance note accessed via ODI's September newsletter under "Publications", and can be found here.
