Sectoral evidence-synthesis infrastructure hubs

The emerging sectoral hub for climate solutions is in many respects furthest along. The development of key capabilities has been funded for some time via a grant from the Wellcome Trust to the DESTINY (Digital Evidence Synthesis Tool INnovation for Yielding improvements in climate and health) consortium. DESTINY will be the central contributor to the sectoral hub for climate solutions, as well as a contributor to the open data system. We hope that additional capabilities will be added through SOLACE-AI and What Works Climate Solutions 2.0, both of which are also supported by the Wellcome Trust, as well as through METIUS, which has a climate dimension to its environmental management hub.

The emerging hubs for four sectors are currently being planned by METIUS as part of a nine-month planning phase running from October 2025 through June 2026 inclusive. The four sectoral hubs include:

1. crime and justice
2. education
3. environmental management
4. sustainable-development ‘accelerators,’ which could include topics such as digital connectivity, energy access and affordability, and women’s empowerment (and for which the framing of ‘accelerators’ is still to be confirmed).
   

The emerging hub for education will benefit from complementary activities being led by the Jacobs Foundation on behalf of a broad array of education-sector funders and partners. Key activities here include:

• a collective statement of intent (from 22 September 2025)
• a collaboration to develop a minimum-viable product of an evidence repository that we hope will eventually become aligned to our multisectoral open data system
• a call for evidence intermediaries – especially in low- and middle-income countries – to test and shape the evidence repository while producing high-impact, policy- or practice-relevant synthesis and translation to support education decision-making

The call was launched 17 December 2025. Expressions of interest are due 29 January 2026, and final proposals are due 3 March 2026. More details about the call can be found in the expressions-of-interest document. Periodic updates about these activities are available through the Jacobs Foundation, with their last update having been sent in December.

Three emerging spokes in the hub-and-spoke model proposed for use by the health hub are in the early planning stages:

• health emergencies, including pandemics, which brings together both global partners (e.g., GLOPID-R and WHO) and national partners (e.g., Canada, Ireland, UK, USA)
• mental health, which we hope will build on well developed living-evidence synthesis platforms such as GALENOS and metapsy
• preventive services, including screening, which we hope will build on a new living evidence-synthesis platform called BUcKLES.

As noted on the main sectoral hubs webpage, we hope that other spokes in the health hub (e.g., sectors like primary care, conditions like non-communicable diseases, treatments like prescription drugs, and populations like pregnant women, newborns and children) will be considered as part of possible new foundational investments.