A time-responsive tool for informing policy making: rapid realist review

A realist synthesis attempts to provide policy makers with a transferable theory that suggests a certain program is more or less likely to work in certain respects, for particular subjects, in specific kinds of situations. Yet realist reviews can require considerable and sustained investment over time, which does not always suit the time-sensitive demands of many policy decisions. 

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‘Rapid Realist Review’ methodology (RRR) has been developed as a tool for applying a realist approach to a knowledge synthesis process in order to produce a product that is useful to policy makers in responding to time-sensitive and/or emerging issues, while preserving the core elements of realist methodology.

Here, the authors describes their experience in developing RRR, the key ingredients in making it work, the policy questions to which it is most suited, the strengths and limitations of the method, and the future directions of how this approach may be optimized in practice. In doing so, they provide key examples of RRR projects completed by their group over the past six years.