[FRB-CESAB] Biodiversity knowledge synthesis: an introduction to meta-analyses and systematic reviews – 2026 - Fondation pour la recherche sur la biodiversité

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Home > Events > [FRB-CESAB] Biodiversity knowledge synthesis: an introduction to meta-analyses and systematic reviews – 2026

The CESAB – Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis – of the FRB is offering the fifth edition of the following training course: “Biodiversity knowledge synthesis: an introduction to meta-analyses and systematic reviews“.

This five-day training course aims to provide an introduction to the techniques of meta-analysis and systematic reviews/maps applied to the field of biodiversity. It also offers an opportunity to become familiar with various bibliographic tools (Web of Science, OpenAlex, Zotero, etc.) and statistical tools (R packages such as metaDigitise, metafor, etc.).

> Find more about the course on GitHub

Strong proficiency in R is required, but prior experience in meta-analyses or systematic reviews is not necessary. A strong level of French is mandatory. English is recommended to follow some parts of the course

The training course will be given in French and will take place from October 5 to October 9^th 2026 at CESAB, in Montpellier. The price will be 250 € for the week, including lunch. Participants will be responsible for their own travel, accommodation, and evening meals.

The FRB offers 4 scholarships of 250 euros each, which will cover the full registration fees. These scholarships are intended to support individuals who do not receive any institutional support (e.g., funding from their laboratory, research team, etc.) and who are unable to cover the registration fees with their own funds. We fully trust each applicant to assess their situation and apply for a scholarship only if necessary. The selection of participants will be carried out independently of the scholarship applications. Once this selection is made, the scholarships will be awarded by a random draw among the selected participants who have expressed a need for financial assistance (4 scholarships).

List of organisers (in alphabetical order):

Damien BEILLOUIN (Cirad – Hortys)
Sylvie CAMPAGNE (EIFER – European Institute for Energy Research)
Nicolas CASAJUS (FRB-Cesab)
Joseph LANGRIDGE (FRB-Cesab)
Devi VEYTIA (FRB-Cesab)

Pre-register to this training

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Workshop: October 5 – 9 2026

Pre-registration opening

April 7th 2026

Pre-registration closure

May 4th 2026, midnight (CEST)

Registration confirmation (approximative)

Mid-May 2026

CESAB – FRB

5, rue de l’École de médecine

34000 Montpellier

Contacts

Joseph LANGRIDGE

Fiche – Mail

Nicolas CASAJUS

Fiche – Mail

Monday

Welcome and introduction to the week
Introduction to knowledge syntheses and meta-analyses
Importance of stakeholder involvement
Protocol development: importance of a pre-established methodological plan
Systematic literature search: databases and formulation of search equations
Corpus compilation and cleaning
Systematic article selection: screening by title, abstract, and full text; definition of eligibility criteria

Tuesday

[EN] AI-assisted screening: introduction to automated screening of titles and abstracts
Principles of Reporting and transparency in syntheses
Manual approach: introduction to systematic maps and metadata extraction (coding) for systematic mapping
[EN] AI-assisted data extraction: categorization of qualitative data
Practical session: qualitative syntheses and visualization of (meta)data

Wednesday

Critical appraisal of studies: principles and implementation
Introduction to quantitative approaches: effect sizes, Hedges’ g/d, odds ratios
Quantitative data extraction: available tools (R packages: metaDigitise, PlotDigitizer, etc.)
Practical session: quantitative synthesis and visualization of results (forest plots)
Risk of bias assessment and interpretation of meta-analysis results

Thursday

Group work: practice and consolidation of acquired techniques

Friday

Presentation and discussion of group projects

CO-ORGANISER