Calling a review “systematic” does not necessarily mean that it has followed a rigorous process and gold-standard methods. Proving that a review is systematic has become easier for both editors and peer reviewers, with a checklist developed by the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE) that has been adopted by at least 19 journals.

The “Checklist for editors for assessing validity of systematic reviews in the environmental sector” was first published in Environmental Evidence in 2025. Co-authored by Andrew Pullin, CEE Chief Executive, and Biljana Macura, a CEE Centre Lead and Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Evidence, the checklist provides editors and reviewers with a rapid way to identify whether a manuscript claiming to be systematic has actually met the essential requirements of the method.

Specifically, the checklist helps assess whether a review has followed essential steps. These include developing an appropriate protocol, conducting a comprehensive search, assessing the validity of included studies, extracting data comprehensively and using appropriate methods of data synthesis.

Now the checklist is being taken up more widely. So far at least 19 BMC journals, spanning fields from energy and sustainability to ecology, agriculture, aquaculture, oceans and animal science, have incorporated it into their submission guidelines. “Decisions in environmental policy or practice need reliable scientific evidence,” says Macura. “Supporting editors and peer reviewers in identifying methodological weaknesses in reviews is essential to ensuring that the synthesized evidence is rigorous and trustworthy.”

A checklist cannot replace peer review. Instead, it creates a shared set of expectations and helps make methodological quality part of the publishing and peer review process. The adoption of the checklist by journals is therefore more than a procedural change. It is an example of how methodological work can have impact beyond an individual publication – by becoming part of the infrastructure through which research is assessed and communicated.

The checklist can be directly accessed on the CEE website.