In 2018, the Queen’s Collaboration for Health Care Quality: A Joanna Briggs Institute Centre of Excellence (QcHcQ) spearheaded an incentive to increase collaboration and international partnerships. As part of this initiative, six library scientists from the partner institutions of the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) were invited to Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario to undertake training.  The objective was to provide these library scientists with a comprehensive systematic review-training workshop using the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for evidence synthesis. The intense six-day training workshop covered evidence synthesis of quantitative evidence and qualitative evidence as well as multiple methodologies for the synthesis of different levels of evidence. As a continuation of the collaboration a joint systematic review was embarked on titled: The role of library scientists in fostering evidence based health care.

The objective of this systematic review is to explore perceptions, experiences, and attitudes of health care professionals in teaching hospitals, academic health science centers, and health care professional colleges regarding the role of librarians in fostering the production of evidence-based research. Introduction:Evidence-based health practice entails the use of the best research evidence, combined with knowledge and information gained through professional expertise as a practicing clinician, and consideration of patients' concerns and preferences to make the best possible decision for the care provided to those patients. With their extensive skills in literature searching, librarians and other information professionals contribute to the process of evidence-based health practice by locating and retrieving the most relevant information for clinical practice. Despite the importance of librarians in evidence-based health practice, little attention has been paid to the perceptions and attitudes of health care professionals toward the involvement of librarians in fostering evidencebased research and their participation in other evidence-based health practice activities. Inclusion criteria:The population of interest is health care professionals working in teaching hospitals, academic health science centers, and health care professional colleges who make clinical decisions based on evidence, clinical judgments, and patient values. Methods:The following databases will be searched from database inception till June 2021 for published and unpublished studies: CINAHL, PsycINFO, AMED, Academic Search Premier, Scopus, LISTA, MEDLINE, POPLINE, and OpenGrey. Studies published in English will be considered for review. The selected studies will be critically assessed for methodological quality by two independent reviewers.