Summer School on Systematic Reviews of Animal Studies,
Bergen, Norway
20 - 23 August 2024

You may already have heard about the value of systematic reviews of published animal studies, compared with standard narrative reviews of the literature.

On this School you will learn all the steps needed to perform a systematic review of your own, including how to perform literature searches, how to manage references, how to screen abstracts, and risk of bias.

The School will be led by experts in Systematic Reviews from the University of Zurich, in collaboration with Norecopa and the University of Bergen.

The programme for the School may be downloaded here. We recommend that the School is awarded 2 ECTS points by educational establishments.

The number of participants is limited to 20, to ensure best possible individual tuition. Early career researchers will be given priority, but places will be otherwise be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Please do not hesitate to contact Adrian Smith if you are interested in attending.

The absolute deadline for applications is 1 July 2024. We reserve the right to cancel the event if there are insufficient applicants, in which case the cost will be refunded to those who have already paid.

Price: The School fee is NOK 3,500. This includes lunch and refreshments during the hours of the course, but does not include accommodation, breakfast or dinner. Participants must also cover their own travel costs. We can book a single hotel room for you for NOK 1,900 per night (bed and breakfast) if you request this on the registration form. Please be aware that Bergen is a very popular tourist attraction in August. Comparable hotels are likely to be more expensive and quickly sold-out.
We are applying for more sponsorship of this School and will update this website and those who already have expressed an interest if we receive more funding.

Location: The School will be held at the Scandic Ørnen hotel, in the centre of Bergen, Norway. Bergen is known as "the gateway to the Norwegian fjords", and is a good starting point for a vacation. The city itself has many attractions and the wharf area (Bryggen) is on UNESCO's World Heritage list. The hotel can be reached by bus/light rail from Bergen airport which has many direct international flights, or by train from Oslo city centre (an experience in itself!).

Registration: The registration form will soon be available here - in the meantime, please send a short email showing your interest in the School to Adrian Smith. You will be issued an invoice - registration is not considered valid until payment has been received by us. In case of cancellation, full refunds will be made until 1 July. Cancellations after that date will not be refunded.

All queries about the School should be addressed to Adrian Smith.

Welcome to Bergen!

Download a flyer about the School, for free distribution: pdf version (17MB) or jpg image (2MB)

Read a paper by the Swiss team about their experiences on a previous Summer School:

Rosso M, Doneva SE, Howells DW, Leenaars CHC & Ineichen BV (2024): Summer school for systematic reviews of animal studies: Fostering evidence-based and rigorous animal research. ALTEX - Alternatives to animal experimentation, 41(1), pp. 131–134. doi: 10.14573/altex.2310251