Systematic review approaches have the potential to improve decision-making in chemical risk assessment, in particular where there is conflicting evidence and where there is significant uncertainty. This publication uses a high-level overview to provide guidance to chemical risk assessors who are not currently familiar with systematic approaches, without being prescriptive or endorsing any existing published methods. This framework will assist chemical risk assessors to understand assessments conducted by other institutions that have used systematic approaches, and will also assist in understanding the issues, limitations and challenges involved if institutions are considering using systematic review approaches in their own assessments.