Identifying the use of European Public Assessment Reports (EPARs) for scientific research: a scoping review protocol

Objective: The objective of this scoping review is to identify and characterize how European Public Assessment Reports (EPARs) have been used to address scientific research questions. Introduction: The European Platform for Regulatory Science Research launched in March 2025, held its first meeting in May 2025 to gather researchers and regulators. The platform aims to accelerate regulatory science research and translate it for regulatory purposes. During the first meeting, the use of regulatory data in research was discussed, with a particular focus on the EPAR. Although EPARs are a key source of publicly available regulatory information, their use in scientific research has not been systematically explored. This scoping review will examine how EPARs have been used to answer scientific questions in published literature. The outcomes of scoping review will inform the design of a small-scale survey focusing on researchers’ experiences with extracting and analyzing EPAR data. Together, these efforts aim to contribute to a guidance document on the use of EPARs as a methodological tool in regulatory science research.