searchRxiv (pronounced “search archive”) has been established to support researchers to report, store and share their searches consistently and to enable them to review and re-use existing searches. In any discipline a well-constructed search strategy is at the core of evidence-based research, enabling the comprehensive retrieval of eligible studies to be assessed for relevance, and ensuring that no existing research which may be relevant is missed. Evidence-based study is a complex process typically involving teams of people to identify a question and formulate the protocols and searches which retrieve the evidence for the study. The resulting searches can be long and complex to handle. Consistency in how searches are reported, shared and stored for possible re-use by other users is key to ensure quality across these activities. searchRxiv enables researchers to:

• Post their searches, ensuring credit for all those involved
• Obtain a digital object identifier (DOI) for their search, enabling it to be cited
• Share their searches in a consistent format, allowing others to re-use
• Comment on searches, allowing them to be improved
• Link searches to published articles as relevant
• Find it easier to follow best practice for structuring their search strategy
• Easily find relevant searches in their subject area by searching across search strings as well as metadata describing those search strings

The site is hosted and managed by CABI (cabi.org), an international, inter-governmental, not-for-profit organization that improves people’s lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment.

searchRxiv is the result of various surveys, workshops and interviews which CABI has been involved with over many months, in combination with CABI’s expertise from providing search tools to the community.  We have also worked closely with Neal R Haddaway^1,2,3* who along with  Melissa Rethlefsen⁴ led the Working Group on Search Strategy Repository Draft Data Structure;  their combined recommendations,  “Proposal for a standardised file type for documenting systematic searches”  have played a key role in coalescing the initial thinking behind the development of this website

The site will continue to evolve and develop through community driven collaboration with information retrieval and evidence synthesis experts across many disciplines.

¹Stockholm Environment Institute, Linnégatan 87D, Stockholm, Sweden

²Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Torgauer Strasse 19, Berlin, Germany

³Africa Centre for Evidence, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

⁴Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center (HSLIC), University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, United States of America

^*[email protected], [email protected]