is managed by three national non-governmental agencies concerned with information, research and practical responses to drug and alcohol problems in Britain. Together with subject specialist Mike Ashton, Alcohol Concern, DrugScope and the National Addiction Centre responded to the need for increased investment in this sector to be guided by research on the effectiveness of the interventions being funded.

The need to link practice with research was widely recognised, but there was a problem: because it is the core business of neither side to link up with the other, these two sectors are isolated from each other. Researchers talk to each other in academic journals, while practitioners have neither the time nor the skills to monitor the world evaluation literature and make sense of its findings.

In 1999 the partners to the project came together to bridge this divide by creating the Drug and Alcohol Findings magazine. The aim was to provide subscribers with the evidence they need to demonstrate and improve the effectiveness of their interventions to treat, prevent or reduce drug and alcohol problems. Drawing on the resources of the project's partners, the magazine's editor monitored research from across the world, identified and obtained the evaluation studies, and selected those most relevant to the UK. To make the studies intelligible and useful to practitioners, in the magazine's Nuggets the findings were encapsulated, set in the context of earlier research, and the practice implications were explored. Also published were authoritative, practice-oriented reviews of the literature and extended analyses of key studies.

With support from the J. Paul Getty Jr. Charitable Trust and later from the Pilgrim Trust, in 2006 the Findings partnership set out to extend the project by replacing the magazine with a free web-based service called the Effectiveness Bank. This new service will be fronted by a customised search facility created by drug information specialists DrugScope, enabling users to find relevant content from the magazine and (within copyright restrictions) from source research papers and reviews. Initially it will be stocked with the entire contents of the past 15 issues of the magazine – 230 Nuggets and similar items analysing over 300 key studies plus 54 articles including in-depth analyses of priority topics such as opiate overdose prevention, how to prevent the spread of hepatitis C, and the importance of the manner in which patients are treated.

The Effectiveness Bank will continue be updated as new research is selected for inclusion, drawing on our partners' extensive information sources.

Use the e-mail update service to monitor developments. Further information from editor@findings.org.uk.