ESIC Series: Paper 1 Introduction to the Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure Collaborative (ESIC) Planning Process Series.

The 21st century has seen exponential growth in evidence synthesis production, yet the global evidence ecosystem remains fragmented and inconsistently resourced, leaving persistent gaps that hamper effective responses to critical global challenges. In 2025, the Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure Collaborative (ESIC) was established to conceptualise, design and support a sustainable, coordinated global infrastructure for living evidence synthesis. Bringing together multilaterals, citizen-serving NGOs, funders, evidence producers, methodologists and policymakers, the ESIC planning process adopted a participatory, transparent co-design approach across five thematic working groups and a governance planning group, culminating in the June 2025 Cape Town Consensus Meeting and the development of the ESIC Roadmap. This paper introduces a series describing the process and recommendations arising from the ESIC planning phase, situating the initiative within the broader history of efforts to translate evidence into policy and practice. It outlines the origins, structure and governance of the planning process and sets out the purpose of the accompanying paper series: to guide future investment in evidence synthesis infrastructure and to provide a historical record of this phase in its development.