Any registered Author in Cochrane’s contacts database, Archie, with an active account will be eligible to vote.

Dear Cochrane Authors,

Voting is now open for the election of two (2) Author representatives to the new Cochrane Council.

To access the candidate statements and online voting form, please visit the Cochrane Community site, here: http://elections.cochrane.org/.

The deadline for voting is the end of Friday 10 March 2017 in any timezone. The two successful candidates will be announced in the week beginning 13 March 2017. Questions about any aspect of this process should be submitted to voting@cochrane.org.

Candidates standing:

The following eligible* candidates have put themselves forward for election (listed in alphabetical order):

1.    Lawrence Best
2.    Soumyadeep Bhaumik
3.    Julie Brown
4.    Agustín Ciapponi
5.    Tom Fahey
6.    Gill Gyte
7.    Vanessa Jordan
8.    Sarah Lensen
9.    Roshan das Nair
10.    Mohan Pammi
11.    María Ximena Rojas Reyes
12.    Lorainne Tudor Car
13.    Marialena Trivella

How to vote:

• Each voter gets one vote for each Author representative position available, so in this election, voters get to choose the two candidates they would like to see elected from the pool of candidates standing.
• Once you have read the candidate statements, above, please vote for two (2) candidates from the pool of thirteen (13) standing.

Eligibility to vote:

• Any registered Author in Cochrane’s contacts database, Archie, with an active account will be eligible to vote. This includes Authors who are not eligible to stand for election themselves as they have not published a Cochrane Review in the Cochrane Library.
• You can confirm you are eligible to vote by logging into Archie (archie.cochrane.org), searching for your person record, and confirming you have an active role, listed as “Yes” in the Author role in the Roles tab. If you do not have an Archie account, you may request one by contacting your Cochrane Review Group.

Reminder of the Council’s role:

The new Cochrane Council was established in November 2016 at the recommendation of the Governing Board, following a review in which directly elected Group representatives on the Board were replaced with representatives elected by the full Cochrane membership. The intention of establishing the Council is to ensure that Cochrane Groups retain an effective voice in Cochrane’s leadership and strategic decision-making. The purpose of the Council is to provide:

• A forum for Cochrane Groups to consider high-level matters affecting Cochrane as a whole;
• A mechanism to raise matters and provide input to the Governing Board on behalf of Cochrane Groups; and
• A forum to consider matters at the request of the Board and inform Board deliberations.

The initial Council will primarily include representatives drawn from, or with the recommendation of, the Group Executives. The Council will review and modify its membership over time, adjusting the balance of members, reflecting changes following the Structure and Function review, and bringing in additional members from other sectors of Cochrane’s community such as translators, knowledge translation hubs, etc.

Although Authors do not have their own Executive, they did have a representative on the Steering Group before it transitioned to the Governing Board. For this reason, there will be two Author representative positions on the Council at this stage.

With best wishes,

Mona Nasser

Cochrane Author, former Author representative on the Steering Group and current member of the Governing Board

Denise Thomson

Chair of the Governance Review Working Group* and member of the Governing Board

---

*For this first election, the Governance Reform Working Group** has agreed that any Author who has published at least one Cochrane Review in the Cochrane Library is eligible to stand for election. The Author’s name must be listed in the Authors section of the Cochrane Review, but that person does not have to be lead/correspondence Author on the Review.

• You do not need to be nominated by any other members of Cochrane in order to stand for election.
• You are eligible to stand even if you have also been eligible to stand as a different representative (e.g. for Managing Editors). 
• The term of membership will be two years. For more information on membership, please see the Council’s Terms of Reference.
• You must be available to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, for the Council’s first meeting on Thursday 6th April 2017. Your travel and accommodation costs, and other expenses, will be covered by Cochrane.

**Current Working Group members: Denise Thomson, Lisa Bero, Joerg Meerpohl.