Epistemonikos SK Ecosystem

Epistemonikos Sustainable Knowledge Ecosystem

From evidence discovery to continuous updating, all in one connected system.

A database of more than 11 million enriched research records, connected to a suite of tools covering the entire evidence synthesis process, enables teams to produce high-quality evidence faster and keep it up to date as new studies emerge.

In numbers

More than 11 million

bibliographic records enriched with metadata

randomized trials in ED-Trials
More than 1.6 million
systematic reviews in ED-Reviews
More than 700,000
systematic reviews processed to extract key information from the reviews and their included studies
More than 50,000
curating the world's largest database of health evidence
Since 2012

Why Sustainable Knowledge

Evidence synthesis today is slow, expensive and highly redundant: many teams repeat the same work and reviews go out of date quickly.

Epistemonikos coined the term Sustainable Knowledge for knowledge produced with the highest quality, the greatest efficiency and the least redundancy. This ecosystem puts that idea into practice.

  • Highest quality
  • Greatest efficiency
  • Least redundancy

The ecosystem at a glance

The ecosystem rests on two pillars that feed each other. The SK Database supplies structured evidence to every stage of the end-to-end system, and the system feeds new metadata back into the database.

The diagram shows the two pillars of the ecosystem side by side: the SK Database on the left and the SK End-to-End system on the right.

SK Database: a metadata-rich bibliographic knowledge base with more than 11 million enriched records. A Metadata Enrichment Pipeline keeps it growing through four sources: human-curated metadata; semi-automated extraction from systematic reviews (more than 50,000 processed); AI-based enrichment; and user-contributed metadata (coming soon). Below the database, the Epistemonikos API gives developers and partner tools open access to the SK Database.

SK End-to-End system: three connected stages, from top to bottom. 1. Search, with the searchable databases: Epistemonikos Database of Trials (ED-Trials), Epistemonikos Database of Reviews (ED-Reviews) and All-Epistemonikos (more than 11,000,000 records), plus the integrated ABC tool and EET taxonomy. 2. Produce, with the evidence synthesis tools: the Sustainable Knowledge Platform (SKP), covering screening, data extraction, meta-analysis, Summary of Findings tables, figures and tables, manuscript drafting and citation management. 3. Publish and decide, with end-user formats: interactive Evidence Synthesis (iES); and decision-making tools: interactive Evidence to Decision (iEtD), plus the integrated iSoF and iSoQ tools.

Connections: the SK Database feeds records and metadata into the Search stage and into the Produce stage. The Produce stage (SKP) sends user-contributed metadata back into the enrichment pipeline, so each review done in the system also enriches the database.

SK-Database

The engine underneath: the SK Database

The SK Database is the master database of Epistemonikos: a bibliographic knowledge base of more than 11 million records, each enriched with the metadata that evidence synthesis needs. A specialized team and several technologies keep it accurate through a continuous, four-part enrichment pipeline:

  1. 01

    Human-curated metadata

    For more than a decade, the Epistemonikos team has added structured metadata under rigorous quality control.

  2. 02

    Semi-automated extraction from systematic reviews

    A large-scale pipeline has processed more than 50,000 systematic reviews and transferred key information from the reviews and their included studies into the database.

  3. 03

    AI-based enrichment

    Validated machine-learning and large language model "enrichers" add new metadata every day, and the team supervises and refines them continuously.

  4. 04
    Coming soon

    User-contributed metadata

    Teams working in SKP and partner tools will be able to contribute data from their own projects.

The result is a database that keeps growing in accuracy, coverage and value for the whole evidence ecosystem.

Sustainable Knowledge end-to-end system

The Sustainable Knowledge End-to-End System (SK-E2E) is a connected suite of tools that supports the entire evidence synthesis process, from the initial search to the final decision, powered by the SK Database.

  1. SearchED-ReviewsED-Trials
  2. ProduceSK-Platform
  3. PublishiES
  4. DecideiEtD
SK Database11M+ enriched records working in the background at every stage

Your search strategy and results move straight into your review project and stay linked to it. When new evidence appears, updating the review takes a few steps instead of starting over. At every stage, the SK Database works in the background: it reduces screening workload, flags studies you may have missed, links related publications and unpublished data, and supplies risk of bias assessments and extracted data.

Produce

Sustainable Knowledge Platform (SKP)

SKP is one platform for every step of a systematic review or other evidence synthesis:

  • Screening
  • Data extraction
  • Meta-analysis
  • Summary of Findings tables
  • Figures and tables
  • Manuscript drafting
  • Citation management

SKP connects directly to the SK Database and uses AI to speed up each step without lowering quality standards. It adapts to different review types, methods, team workflows and output formats.

Publish and decide

Interactive Evidence Synthesis (iES)

Publish your review as an interactive website, with layered visualizations, interactive Summary of Findings tables, maps and figures. iES also supports living reviews that update as new evidence is incorporated. Because it is directly integrated with SKP, publishing takes a few clicks.

Interactive Evidence to Decision Frameworks (iEtD)

Bring the evidence from your SKP project straight into the GRADE Evidence to Decision framework. iEtD is an interactive tool for guideline panels and decision-makers who are turning evidence into recommendations.

Connect to the SK Database

For developers and partners

Building an evidence synthesis tool? Connect it to the SK Database through the Epistemonikos API. You get enriched records, search integration and linked updates in your own product.