We are delighted to share the news that the Cochrane Steering Group (CSG) has appointed its third external member: Dr Michael Makanga, MBChB, MSc, PhD, FRCP Edin. Michael is Executive Director of the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), and a Ugandan physician with 25 years of professional experience working on health and poverty-related diseases in sub‐Saharan Africa, as well as medical product development and clinical regulatory activities. Michael joins the CSG with immediate effect; his appointment, along with two other recently-appointed external members, will be subject to confirmation by Cochrane members at the 2016 Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 25 October at the Cochrane Colloquium in Seoul, South Korea.

The CSG has undertaken these appointments within its existing powers to co-opt external members as required, and potentially as the first step in Cochrane’s proposed re-structure of the CSG into the Cochrane Board. The governance re-structure is undergoing consultation with the Cochrane community during 2016, and Cochrane Groups will have the final vote on the proposal, also at the 2016 AGM. For more information on this project, please see the Governance re-structure project pages on our Community site.

For more information on this appointment, please see the full announcement on cochrane.org.