Although I left the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission at the beginning of the summer, I am very glad that the Report and Guidelines on Rapid Science for Policy (RS4P) finally saw the light!

Open access here: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC146085

The study is authored by Kerry Waddell, Michael Wilson, and John N. Lavis of the McMaster Health Forum and edited by myself.

It is the result of more than a year of work with these incredible people, involving also my former colleagues of the Centre for Advanced Studies at the JRC Stefan Muench, Olesya Grabova, and Ines Costa-Carrapico.

The study identifies emerging approaches, methods, tools and best practices of RS4P. It highlights that effective RS4P depends not only on methodological rigor, but also on interdisciplinary teams, strong evidence infrastructures and trust between researchers, knowledge brokers, and decisio-nmakers. Artificial intelligence is already accelerating literature retrieval, screening and communication tasks, yet the study warns that human oversight remains essential because AI still struggles with interpretation, critical appraisal and synthesis of complex evidence. The authors conclude that future progress will rely on globally connected evidence ecosystems, alongside coordinated investments and shared standards.

The Report was drafted by the authors and collaboratively refined by a group of RS4P experts, during a two-day international workshop on RS4P, organized and chaired at the JRC in Brussels in November 2025. The Guidelines are the result of such refinement and work as an operational guidance to support teams interested in the evolving field of RS4P as they continue developing their approaches.

The Report is highly relevant for governments, EU institutions and international organizations seeking to strengthen evidence-informed policymaking under conditions of urgency, uncertainty and fast-changing scenarios. By mapping best practices, tools and implementation requirements, the Guidelines provide a practical roadmap for building RS4P teams capable of producing timely, effective and policy-relevant evidence syntheses.