International Network for Evidence on Supervised Consumption Sites (INESS)

The International Network for Evidence on Supervised Consumption Sites (INESS) is an international research consortium and collaborative research network. Its aim is to strengthen and harmonise the evaluation of supervised consumption sites (SCS) internationally. 

INESS brings together researchers working on SCS evaluations across different countries to share methods, analytical approaches and evidence. 

By fostering international research collaboration, INESS aims to support rigorous, comparable evaluations that advance the global evidence base on the health and community impacts of supervised consumption sites and inform future research and policy discussions. 

Objective

INESS operates as a consortium of independent research groups collaborating on shared evaluation goals. 

The primary objective of INESS is to support high‑quality, coordinated evaluation of supervised consumption sites internationally by: 

• identifying and addressing key evidence gaps in the international research literature through coordinated research efforts 
• promoting shared evaluation frameworks, indicators and analytical approaches 
• facilitating collaboration and data sharing across countries and cohorts 
• supporting methodological innovation to strengthen causal inference, triangulate findings and reduce potential sources of bias 
• translating evidence to inform policy, practice and public communication. 

Timeline

2026–ongoing.

INESS is designed as a long-term international collaboration, with ongoing expansion as new supervised consumption sites are established and evaluated globally. 

Our approach

INESS adopts a collaborative network approach that includes:

• International research collaboration: Connecting academic and applied researchers conducting evaluations of supervised consumption sites across multiple jurisdictions. 
• Methodological alignment: Developing and sharing common evaluation measures, indicators and analytic strategies where they add value, while harnessing diverse and complementary methodologies to improve the robustness of findings and reduce potential bias. 
• Knowledge exchange: Regular meetings, research visits, workshops and collaborative outputs to share findings, challenges and emerging methods, facilitate shared learning and enhance the international reach of evidence. 
• Research dissemination: Supporting joint publications and contributions to the international evidence base on supervised consumption sites. 

Through this approach, INESS aims to enhance the quality, consistency and impact of international research on supervised consumption sites. 

ENACT (Scotland): Evaluating the impact of the UK's first sanctioned safer drug consumption facility (ENACT)

A research program funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) evaluating the first sanctioned supervised injecting facility in the UK, with a focus on health, social and economic outcomes, service engagement and broader public health impacts on the wider community. 

HEPCO (Canada)

A long-running prospective cohort of people who inject drugs in Montreal with repeated follow-up and detailed data on socio-demographics, drug use patterns, markers of vulnerability, risk, health services use and health outcomes, including supervised injecting site use.  

SAFER (United States of America): Study Assessing the Effectiveness of Overdose Prevention Centers Through Evaluation Research 

The SAFER evaluation program focuses on the assessment of supervised consumption services in the US context, examining health, service‑level and community‑related outcomes among people who use supervised consumption sites.

SIRX (Australia): Supervised Injecting Room Cohort Study

A longitudinal cohort study of individuals recruited from Melbourne’s Medically Supervised Injecting Room and surrounding areas of established street‑based drug markets.

VIDUS (Canada): Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study

A long‑running prospective cohort of people who inject drugs in Vancouver, providing extensive data on drug use, health outcomes and service utilisation, including supervised consumption services.