This is part of a series of Cochrane Blog posts about knowledge translation work carried out by knowledge translation working groups. You can read more about Knowledge Translation in Cochrane and discover more resources for partnerships development. Here Sylvia de Haan, Senior Advisor on Centres, Partnerships & Fundraising, tells us more about the new guidance on engaging external partners.

Cochrane reviews should help inform health decision making. As the producers of reviews, we cannot do this on our own. Strategic partnerships, at the organizational, regional, national, network and group levels, are essential. These partnerships can be very diverse, from working with local media or a local community organization, to global and national health policy makers, major research funders, as well as a wide variety of health practitioners.

The Knowledge Translation Working Group on Formalizing Strategic Partnerships  has now developed practical guidance for Cochrane Review Groups, Geographically-oriented Groups (collectively: Groups), Networks and Fields to facilitate this strategic partnership development.

In its partnership policy, Cochrane defines partnership as: ‘A collaborative relationship between two or more parties that have agreed to work together, that is based on trust, equality and mutual understanding, and focuses on the pursuit of common goals that cannot be accomplished by the partners on their own’.

This definition drives our partnership work. The guidance note that is now available aims to provide practical guidance. Partnership development should become a less daunting undertaking, but instead an activity that every Cochrane Group, Network or Field considers when producing or receiving Cochrane review.

The KT training website includes the partnership guidance note, case studies, as well as references to other resources that can support each step of a partnership development process.  We welcome any feedback on the guidance and encourage you to share your experiences of your partnership work, so that we can further improve our partnership work and truly make this an added value to what we do.

Feedback can be send to: support@cochrane.org).

Sylvia de Haan
Senior Advisor (Centres, Partnerships & Fundraising)
Chief Executive’s Office