The mission of our working group is to develop statistical methods to aid in research synthesis and comparative effectiveness research and to foster collaboration among UMN students and faculty conducting research in these areas. Our members develop statistical methods across many areas including multivariate and network meta-analysis, meta-analysis of diagnostic tests, causal inference in meta-analysis, and meta-analysis of normative data. We are also interested in bridging the gap between statistical theory and practice by publishing work that translates methodological issues and recent advances to a clinical and epidemiological audience.