The advancement of the evidence­based practice movement across Europe can be seen in the emergence of various organisations for research synthesis (e.g. in UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden) (Lenihan 2013). Inspired by Anglo­ American success stories of clearinghouses, centres for "what works" and "best evidence" programmes European governments, researchers and private entrepreneurs have embraced the idea of systematic review and meta­analysis in the field of education. The method of systematic review are often characterised as a detailed and standardised approach with emphasis on transparency and quality to ensure solid evidence often associated with randomised control trials well known from the field of medicine (Petticrew & Roberts 2005, Torgerson 2003). However, recent developments within the field implies various perspectives on what a systematic review is, its purposes, focus in research and in methods (Gough et al. 2013, Levinsson & Prøitz 2015). This paper presents a study of methods used in three European agencies conducting systematic reviews. The study draws on multiple data from literature studies, document analysis, web analysis and expert interviews. The main findings imply that even though there seem to be one overall methodology and method, there are obvious procedural variations between agencies in how they proceed in their making of systematic reviews. These findings make a call for a discussion on the main differences between agency specific approaches in systematic reviewing and in particular what consequences variation in procedures might bring for the broader conceptions of what count as evidence in education.

Gough, D., Oliver, S. & Thomas, J. (2013) An Introduction to Systematic Reviews. Sage: Los Angeles. Hammersley, M. (2001) Some questions about evidence­based practice in education, Paper presented at the symposium on ‘Evidence­based practices in education’ at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, University of Leeds, UK, September 13–15. Lenihan, A. (2013) Lessons from Abroad International Approaches to Promoting Evidence–Based Social Policy. London, Alliance for useful evidence. Levinsson, M. & Prøitz, T. S. (2015) The (Non-)Use of Configurative Reviews in Education, submitted for review to Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research in December 2015. Petticrew, M. & Roberts, H. (2005) Systematic reviews in the social sciences, Blackwell Publishers, Malden. Slavin, R. E. (1986) Best­Evidence Synthesis: An Alternative to Meta­Analytic and Traditional Reviews, Educational Researcher, Vol.15, No. 9, (p. 5­11). Torgerson, C. (2003) Systematic reviews, London, Continuum International.