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The idea behind the event, funded through the University of Edinburgh Business School’s World Class Faculty Workshop scheme, was to bring together representatives from four domains engaged with evidence-based practice (namely health care, management, education and policy) to share insights with the audience and facilitate inter-domain learning.

Following a brief introduction by the workshop organiser, the event began with a presentation on evidence-based health care given by Amanda Burls, Professor in the School of Health Sciences at City University London and senior fellow of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. Amongst others, Amanda spoke about the importance of communication and ‘getting people on board’ when it comes to implementing evidence-based practice, for example in terms of eliciting and sharing implicit knowledge.

Amanda was followed by Eric Barends, Managing Director at the Center for Evidence-Based Management (CEBMA) and Rob Briner, Professor of Organisational Psychology at the School of Management, University of Bath and vice chair of CEBMA’s academic council. In their presentation on evidence-based management, Rob and Eric reminded us that it is critical to make use of the best available evidence from multiple sources in the decision-making process.

The workshop continued after lunch with a presentation on evidence-based education given by David Gough, Professor of Evidence Informed Policy and Practice at the Institute of Education and Director of the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating (EPPI-) Centre. An important suggestion David shared with the audience was in regards to future studies relating to evidence-based practice, which he argued need to consider more closely how research can make impact and how (the findings of) research is being used.

Dr Eamonn Noonan, Director of the Campbell Collaboration and Head of Unit at the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services, completed the series of presentations, speaking about evidence-based policy. Amongst other things, Eamonn talked about the difficulty of dealing with conflicting findings and argued for the development of a central function that sets standards and adds rigour to decision-making processes.

The formal part of the event was completed by a panel discussion, where questions such as ‘who is the ‘judge’ in evidence-based practice?’, ‘what can graduates, trained in evidence-based practice, do to be taken seriously by the established workforce?’ or ‘what have you learnt during today’s workshop?’ were talked over by all five speakers. The panel discussion was followed by a concluding wine reception.

Throughout the day, delegates, speakers (and the organiser) tweeted about the workshop (#EBPEdin).