Table 13 TRANSFER in progress – priorities for further research

The TRANSFER Approach is still under development and some issues are still being discussed and piloted.

Further research is needed to examine the following issues:

- How do we systematically assess transferability for reviews that do not include a meta-analysis (e.g., where there is only a structured synthesis of the results in a narrative form?) [62]

- What are the best methods for presenting assessments of transferability to different users?

- Are factors identified by stakeholders in one setting likely to be important in another setting? How do we apply the findings from a review commissioned from decision makers in one context (such as hospitals in the Norwegian health system) to another decision making context (such as hospitals in one Spanish region)?

- How can TRANSFER be used in the context of GRADE-CERQual (qualitative evidence syntheses), mixed methods reviews, and/or realist reviews?

- How do review authors make an assessment of transferability where there are interactions between TRANSFER factors?

- For a given systematic review using the TRANSFER Approach, what proportion of publications included in that systematic review include details related to the identified TRANSFER factors?