Dear Community colleagues and members,

Your Governing Board met in Cape Town, South Africa, on 10-12 September. We are writing to you at this early stage with information about some of our key decisions. More information will be available in due course (as will the full open access minutes) but if you have any questions about these decisions, please contact one of us, any member of the Board, or Lucie Binder in the CEO's office.

We are pleased to report that the Board approved:

• The Structure and Function of Cochrane Review Groups: Implementation of the Networks and Editorial Board Plan. More information on this will be announced in the coming weeks.
• The CRG Transformation Programme Implementation budget.
• The CRG Transformation Programme appeals procedure set out in the paper, “Process for an appeal against the Editor in Chief’s decision during the Structure & Function Review CRG Transformation Programme”, with modification to paragraphs 10 (a) changing 14 days to 30 days, and 10 (b) 30 days to 60 days.
• Cochrane’s Knowledge Translation (KT) Implementation Plan.  As next steps, the Central Executive will further develop the implementation plan for 2018-2019 focusing on a prioritized 10 (out of 17) work-packages outlined in the KT Framework, working together with the KT Advisory Group.
• The hosting of the Colloquium 2020 in Toronto, Canada, by Cochrane Canada; and the hosting of the Governance Meetings in April 2019 in Krakow, Poland by Cochrane Poland.
• The establishment of two new Cochrane Centres in Argentina and Chile.
• The Cochrane Neonatal Review Group application for Strategic Development Support .
• The Cochrane Lung Cancer Review Group application for Strategic Development Support.
• The appointment of Marguerite Koster as Treasurer of the Cochrane Governing Board.
• The appointment of Gerald Gartlehner as Cochrane Governing Board Representative on the Cochrane Innovations Board.
• And, finally, the Senior Management Team’s proposed Strategy to 2020 priorities for 2018, to guide development of the 2018 Plan & Budget (which will be considered and approved by the Board in December). These are:

1. Successful implementation of the Cochrane Review Group Transformation Programme.
2. Establishing a Cochrane content strategy and improved product development processes.
3. Work to develop Cochrane’s sustainable business model, based on increased subscriptions to the Cochrane Library, and plans made for re-alignment of the Central Executive Team accordingly.
4. Development, expansion, and implementation of Cochrane’s Knowledge Translation initiative across the organization in a sustainable way.
   
   More information on these priorities will follow in due course.

The Agenda and open access papers are available here on the Community site. The full Minutes will be available soon.

The next Governing Board face-to-face meeting will be during Cochrane’s Governance Meeting, 19 -23 March 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal.

With our best wishes,

Cindy Farquhar and Martin Burton

Cochrane Co-Chairs

13 September 2017