Welcome!
University of Birmingham (UoB) is excited to offer current staff, researchers, and students access to its unlimited institutional-wide licence to Covidence.
Covidence is a web-based software platform that streamlines the production of systematic reviews. It supports reference screening, full-text review, risk of bias assessment, extraction of study characteristics and outcomes, and the export of data and references.
Why join the UoB's access to Covidence?
Unlimited references for each review
Unlimited number of reviewers for each review
Unlimited number of reviews
How to access the UoB's licence account with Single Sign-On (SSO)
New Users - If you have not yet signed up to Covidence with your UoB email address, you will need to create a new account. You can do this simply by signing in via Single-Sign-On (SSO).
Go to the Covidence sign-up page
Select 'Create account with SSO'
Enter your UoB email address
You will be redirected to the UoBs SSO login page, and can enter your university credentials
If you have entered the correct credentials, you will be redirected back to Covidence; a merge window prompt will appear to check if you have an existing account with a different email address. Sign in if you have the other account's credentials to merge your work into one place, OR continue with 'Create a New Account'
If you continue with ‘Create a New Account’ - To ensure your Covidence account functions correctly, you’ll be asked for a few additional details to get started. Fill these in, and then click 'Create account'
Existing Users (Option 1) - If your existing account in Covidence is with your non-university email address:
Sign in to your account using the current email and password via the sign-in page
Go to Profile settings and add your UoB email address
Verify the email through the confirmation message sent to the email address you added
Sign out of Covidence
Go to the Covidence SSO Sign-in page
Enter your UoB email address
You will be redirected to your UoB's SSO login page, and enter your university credentials
If you have entered the correct credentials, and the university email matches the one added, your existing account will link automatically; if not, you may see the merge window prompt from 'New Users' above
Existing Users (Option 2)- If you have previously used Covidence and already have a user account associated with your UoB email address, simply log in via SSO and reach your existing account. You will see all of your existing reviews and subscriptions.
Go to the Covidence SSO Sign-in page
Enter your university email address
You will be redirected to the university's SSO login page, and can enter your university credentials
If you have entered the correct credentials, you will be redirected back to Covidence to your existing user account associated with your institutional email address
Alternatively, users can sign in via the Covidence sign-in page and select the "Sign in with SSO" option.
Please note: If you have gone to the Start a New Review page and the University licence is missing, where you think it should be available, check first to ensure you have signed in to Covidence via your University of Birmingham SSO.
Starting a review under the UoB licence account:
Sign in to Covidence
Select Start a new review
Under 'Which account do you want to use?", make sure to select "University of Birmingham"
Please note: If you have started a review in the wrong licence, please contact support@covidence.org
Reviews created using the licence account will be visible to Covidence subscription administrators at the university. Reviews created using your personal account are only visible to you.
Once you have created a review or accepted an invitation to another account review, the title will appear in a separate section on your account homepage:
Scheduled Online Training
The University Library held 4 online training sessions in July 2025 to support UoB users. - If you miss them, watch them on demand!
Covidence 101 - General Overview (Introduction) - Tuesday 15 July, 12:30–13:30 BST: Watch recording here (Passcode: #D#meJ!5)
Screening in Covidence - Thursday 17 July, 10:00–11:00 BST: Watch recording here
Data Extraction 1 (for intervention reviews) - Tuesday 22 July, 12:00–13:00 BST: Watch recording here
Data Extraction 2 (for non-intervention/other review types) - Thursday 24 July, 10:00–11:00 BST: Watch recording here
More about Covidence
The Covidence interface is intuitive and suitable for students and experienced reviewers. Covidence can save time on repetitive review tasks, enabling faster review production and more time for analysis and interpretation.
Discover more about Covidence on each link:
Import references - Covidence works seamlessly with reference management software such as EndNote (Desktop or Online), or any tool that supports RIS or other file formats. Covidence can automatically remove duplicates for you.
Screen title & abstract - Breeze through screening with keyword highlighting & a lightning-quick interface. Covidence keeps full records of who voted and supports single or dual screeners.
Bulk PDF import - Transfer PDFs stored in your reference manager to Covidence in a few clicks. Note that University of Birmingham reviewers are cautioned to not share a review, that would provide access to the full text of articles obtained through University of Birmingham subscriptions or inter-library loan, to reviewers who do not already have the same legal access to those materials. Please contact the Copyright and Licensing Team in Library Services if you have any questions regarding sharing these materials.
Screen full text - Decide quickly on studies in full text. Capture reasons for exclusion and any notes so you can resolve any disagreements quickly, with a click of a button.
Create forms - Be in control and stay focused on your PICO question. Customisable extraction forms mean you only spend time extracting what you need.
Customise risk of bias - Automatically populate your risk of bias tables by highlighting and commenting on the text directly in your PDF.
Conduct data extraction - Extract data efficiently with a side-by-side view of your customised form and PDF. Then, when you are done, easily compare your form with other reviewers.
Export - Covidence exports to all the common formats so you can continue your review in your preferred software.
Collaborate - You can invite other reviewers (including external colleagues) to work with you on the project.
Support from Covidence
Covidence offers a range of available resources and support to help you along the way with your systematic review process.
To get familiar with how a Covidence workflow works, you can try our pre-set Demo review. This will allow you to gain hands-on experience and better understand the process. You will find it at the bottom of your dashboard once you have signed in. Give it a go and feel free to explore!
Getting started with Covidence - video tutorials that guide you through the initial area to get you started.
Covidence Knowledge Base - home to all of our comprehensive articles, instructions and advice to FAQs.
Covidence Academy - Learn and understand the essentials of systematic reviews and gain insight with expert-led training and content to guide you through every step of the review process.
Covidence eBook Collection - Download our step-by-step practical guides for Systematic Review Success.
Monthly Open Training Webinars - Join our Community Team for free webinars (registration required) or watch our recent recordings without delay.
Online Support Team- contact our team directly for support on your review by emailing support@covidence.org
When logged into your account, you can also easily contact the Support Team via the chat icon in the lower-right corner, and access comprehensive articles from our Knowledge Base via the '?' icon in the upper-right corner of the in-app window.
Maintaining Access to Your Work When Leaving the University
We recommend adding a secondary email address before you leave to make it easier to continue using your Covidence account without interruption.
If you need to log back into your Covidence account but cannot because you don’t have access to your university email address anymore, please get in touch by emailing support@covidence.org.