Science, technology, innovation and partnerships evidence gap map

This evidence gap map, part of a project funded by the US Global Development Lab at USAID, assesses the impact evaluation and systematic review evidence base for how science, technology, innovation and partnerships accelerate development outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

The grey bubbles indicate impact evaluation evidence, while the coloured bubbles indicate systematic reviews. For this particular evidence gap map, we only included studies for which we assigned a medium- or high-confidence in their findings, per an adapted version of the Specialist Unit for Review Evidence checklist.

There is large body of evidence around STIP-related interventions, with clusters of related studies in several areas. The matrix of 25 intervention categories and 16 outcome categories contains 320 completed impact evaluations, 77 ongoing impact evaluations and 7 completed systematic reviews. ‘Mobile health’ is the intervention category with the largest number of studies. The large majority of studies report outcomes at individual and household levels rather than firm or community levels. The largest proportion of studies report outcomes related to global health. Most studies in the map were conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa.

For further information on the methodology behind this evidence gap map and an overview of the characteristics of this evidence base, please see the accompanying evidence gap map report: https://www.3ieimpact.org/evidence-hub/publications/evidence-gap-maps/science-technology-innovation-and-partnerships

For an in-depth analysis of the findings of this evidence gap map, coupled with an assessment of the demand for impact evaluation evidence, please see the accompanying scoping report: http://www.3ieimpact.org/evidence-hub/publications/scoping-reports/assessing-evidence-base-science-technology-innovation-and