Andrew Booth MSc, PhD, MCLIP

Andrew is Professor in Evidence Synthesis at the Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR), University of Sheffield. He is currently co-director of three UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Evidence Synthesis Centres commissioned to deliver on demand evidence syntheses and reviews to address NHS and NIHR priorities. He currently coordinates two Masters in Public Health modules in Systematic Reviews and Critical Appraisal and Systematically Reviewing the Literature and teaches external short courses on qualitative evidence syntheses, systematic reviews and rapid reviews.

Andrew is a co-convenor of the Cochrane Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group and was a founder member of the Cochrane Information Retrieval Methods Group. As a systematic review methodologist he has co-authored guidance for the World Health Organization, the Cochrane Collaboration and the core GRADE-CERQual team. Andrew specialises in qualitative evidence synthesis and realist syntheses. He has co-authored qualitative syntheses to support World Health Organization guidelines including the 2nd edition of the Guideline: infant feeding in areas of Zika virus transmission (2021). Working with a team led by Evidence Synthesis Ireland he provided methodological input into the first ever Cochrane rapid qualitative evidence synthesis, completed in 25 days. He continues to deliver training and collaborate in research as an honorary research associate with the Evidence Synthesis Ireland network.

A chartered information professional by training, Andrew moved from information service management at the King’s Fund into academia in 1994 to occupy a hybrid academic and service delivery role, leading teaching in systematic reviews and critical appraisal. With his appointment as Reader (2008) and then Professor (2021) he now occupies an exclusively academic role within the University of Sheffield where he approaches 30 years’ continuous service.

In 2011 Andrew was awarded the Cyril Barnard Memorial Prize by the Health Libraries Group of the Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals in recognition of “an outstanding contribution to health librarianship”.

With his appointment as Adjunct Professor, Andrew looks forward to extending his ongoing collaboration with colleagues at the University of Limerick.