After leading Cochrane Germany for over 20 years, Professor Gerd Antes has stepped down as Director.

Gerd has focused his career on contributing to evidence-based medicine in Germany. While working on developing Cochrane Germany, he was also one of the founders of the German Network for Evidence Based Medicine. A recurrent theme during all these years was his work and advocacy for increasing public access to research results. He campaigned for ensuring clinical trial results are published in a timely manner and emphasized the challenges of non-publishing for the provision of non-biased high-quality synthesized evidence. He also was a strong advocate for making evidence available in other languages than English. And, in addition to language translation, Gerd’s work included the transfer of knowledge in commonly understood (lay) language. He worked with the media in making complex methodology understandable for patients, students and lay persons. One of the products of this work is the German version of the Testing Treatments website: Wo ist der Beweis? Cochrane Germany also became an active contributor to translations into German language (jointly with Cochrane Austria and Cochrane Switzerland), demonstrated by Cochrane Kompakt and the blog Wissen was Wirkt.

When speaking to Gerd about his lifelong investment in evidence-based medicine and accessible information, he says ‘it just goes to show how much investment it needs to eventually get sustainable funding, for a ten year period, and the importance of continuing the activities and messages again and again although there will be long periods where the lack of success and visible results may be frustrating. There are a lot of small pieces of success which in the end may sum up a big jump. That's a lesson to be learnt by the next generation’.

The success for Cochrane Germany came with the long-term funding provided by the Ministry of Health in 2017, which provides optimal conditions for the future of Cochrane Germany and its activities.

In addition to his work in Germany, Gerd was also a member of the Cochrane Steering Group (from 1998 to 2004) representing Centre Directors; and he has contributed to many Centre Director meetings. 

Cochrane’s Chief Executive Officer, Mark Wilson, said: ‘I would sincerely like to thank Gerd for his outstanding contributions to Cochrane’s work over the last two decades. Cochrane Germany was one of the first Cochrane Centres to be established in 1998 and under Gerd’s leadership its impact on informing the debates about evidence-based medicine in Germany and beyond has been formidable. Gerd’s commitment and persistence to the cause of ensuring all have access to the best available evidence is truly commendable. On behalf of all of your Cochrane colleagues and friends, we thank you, Gerd, and wish you every success and happiness for the future.”

Cochrane Germany will be led under the new Directorship of Prof Joerg Meerpohl, supported by Michael Graf managing Director of the Cochrane Germany Foundation. Joerg holds the Cochrane professorship for Evidence in Medicine at the University of Freiburg and directs the Institute for Evidence in Medicine, Medical Center – University of Freiburg.

The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions is the official guide that describes in detail the process of preparing and maintaining Cochrane systematic reviews on the effects of healthcare interventions.

On 29 January, Cochrane Training will be hosting a free webinar to introduce the upcoming version of the Handbook to the Cochrane Community.  Julian Higgins and James Thomas, Senior Editors of Version 6 of the Cochrane Handbook, will present the new Handbook, explain how it was developed and how it is organized online and in the printed version (to be published in 2019). They will comment on the target audience of the Handbook and introduce the key sections and changes in relation to the previous Handbook version. At the end of the webinar there will be time for questions and answers. If you are unable to attend this webinar, a recording will be available afterwards.

• Learn more and sign-up for this webinar
• Find other training opportunities

Following consultations in September and October 2018, Cochrane has decided to establish a Cochrane US Network. This US wide Network aims to engage institutions and organizations involved in evidence-informed health care in the US.

The call for ‘Expressions of Interest’ to join the Cochrane US Network is now open. This call invites US-based organizations and institutions of different kinds to indicate their interest to support and/or join and become part of a new Cochrane US Network. The deadline for submitting an Expression of Interest is January 31, 2019.

• View the US Network Expression of Interest Information

The minutes from the Governing Board’s meeting in Edinburgh,UK, September 2018, are now available. Governing Board members are Cochrane’s directors and trustees, and are elected to direct the strategy and policies of the organization. Questions about the minutes can be sent to admin@cochrane.org.

Additional resources:

• Agenda and open access papers from Edinburgh meeting
• Governing Board membership
• Full list of meeting minutes and open access papers.

Following consultations with all Cochrane Reviews Groups (CRGs) within the network, the ‘Long-Term Conditions and Ageing 2’ Network are pleased to announce that they have changed their name to the ‘Musculoskeletal, Oral Skin and Sensory’ (MOSS) Network. 

This consultation process started with a face-to-face network meeting in September 2019 at the colloquium in Edinburgh, where various alternatives to ‘Long-Term Conditions and Ageing 2’ were suggested and noted within the minutes of the meeting.

Following this a short survey was circulated in October for three weeks, listing the suggestions where members ranked the options from 1 (favourite) to 5 (least favourite), with reminders for participation sent to ensure the views of all members.

By November, the most popular name emerged as ‘Skin, Sensory and Musculoskeletal’ though it was noted that it and other suggestions did not reflect all included CRGs. The Network team therefore deliberated and added ‘oral’  and rearranged the name to ‘Musculoskeletal, Oral, Skin and Sensory’ to create the acronym ‘MOSS’ which was again circulated to all members of the network and adopted on the 30th of November 2019. 

• View the new Musculoskeletal, Oral Skin and Sensory’ (MOSS) Network website. 

Knowledge Translation in Cochrane is delighted to share this request for proposal for the project to agree a set of ‘principles for dissemination’ and to develop practical tools in order to improve the quality of Cochrane’s dissemination products.

This new and exciting opportunity is a commissioned piece of work open to the Cochrane community and will involve working with the Knowledge Translation (KT) ‘Improving and Upscaling KT products’ Working Group and our KT Advisory Group.

The deadline is Friday 18th January 2019, 17:00 GMT. For further information or any questions please contact support@cochrane.org.

• Review the request for proposal
• Find out more information about KT in Cochrane

After leading Cochrane Netherlands for 17 years, Professor Rob Scholten has stepped down as its Director.

Since taking on leadership of the Dutch Cochrane Centre in 2001 (first being based at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, and from 2014 at the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care in Utrecht), Rob has authored many Cochrane reviews and has been enormously successful in developing Cochrane’s work in the Netherlands, collaborating with various national and international researchers. The Centre now provides training in systematic reviews and evidence-informed medicine at the Utrecht Medical Center and to other stakeholders in collaboration with a range of partner organizations, including the World Health Organization.

Rob also developed partnerships with a range of partners and contributed to committees of organisations of relevance to evidence-based health care in the Netherlands, including ZonMW (the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development), the Gezondheidsraad (Health Council of the Netherlands) and the Zorginstituut (National Health Care Institute). In addition, over many years, Cochrane Netherlands has contributed short summaries of Cochrane systematic reviews to the NTvG (the Dutch Journal of Medicine).

As part of the international Cochrane community, Rob played an important role in the work on Diagnostic Test Accuracy (DTA) reviews. He still is a member of the Cochrane DTA Editorial Team, and contributes substantially to the work on the Cochrane DTA Handbook. He was also a member of the Cochrane Steering Group (from 2004 to 2007) representing Centre Directors; and he has contributed to many Centre Director meetings. Furthermore, since 2004, Cochrane Netherlands has played host to the Netherlands Trial Register, which is an WHO approved primary register.

Rob continues to be passionate about evidence-based research that develops and refines methods for systematic reviews and meta-analysis; selective publication and selective outcome reporting; and methods to improve the interpretation and presentation of systematic review results. For all Dutch speaking people, Rob is remembered as the driving force behind the ‘Dutch borrel’ during the annual Cochrane Colloquia with all Dutch speaking Cochranites!

Cochrane’s Chief Executive Officer, Mark Wilson, said: ‘I would sincerely like to thank Rob for his outstanding contributions to Cochrane’s work over the last two decades. Cochrane Netherlands was one of the first Cochrane Centres to be established in 1994, and under Rob’s leadership its impact in improving research methodologies, developing deep international partnerships with international organisations, combined with their continued development of Cochrane authors, has been formidable. The work of Rob and his team over the last 17 years has expanded the scope, reach, and impact of Cochrane activities on health and healthcare decision making across the world. And all of this has been achieved with a graciousness, generosity of spirit, conscientiousness and dry humour that has made Rob a beloved Cochrane collaborator to so many of us. On behalf of all of your Cochrane colleagues and friends, we thank you, Rob, and wish you every success and happiness for the future.”

Cochrane Netherlands will be led under the new Directorship of Dr. Lotty Hooft. Lotty is Associate professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the Julius Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, and has supported Rob as deputy Director of Cochrane Netherlands since 2013 and as Co-Director from October 2016.

• Visit the Cochrane Netherlands website

The Cochrane Council, the representative body for Cochrane Group staff and authors, recently submitted a report to the Governing Board on issues arising from the termination of Professor Peter Gøtzsche’s membership of Cochrane.

You can read this report, here, and the Board’s response, here.

Following on from this correspondence, the Board Co-Chairs, Marguerite Koster and Martin Burton; and the Council Co-Chairs, Miranda Langendam and Fergus Macbeth, are pleased to make the following statement about priorities for Cochrane over the next few months:

Joint Message from the four Co-Chairs 11 December 2018

As the four Co-Chairs, of the Council and of the Governing Board, we have worked together to identify three pieces of work that we believe should be a priority in the next few weeks and months. We took into consideration the input we have received from a wide range of Cochrane members and Groups. These pieces of work have been considered and agreed by the members of the Council and the Board and the work will begin immediately, supported by members of the Central Executive Team.

1. Encouraging wider participation. The Council will work to develop an online forum in which members can debate and discuss any Cochrane-related issues of interest or relevance to them. This specific activity will be undertaken in the context of a broader piece of work, extending over a longer time period, to encourage wider participation by Cochrane members.
   Cochrane is a diverse community and we know that not all members will want to use an online discussion forum. Consequently, we believe it is important for the Council to investigate the need for, and suitability of, other strategies to promote member engagement and participation.
2. "Code of Conduct" for Members of Cochrane. The Council will develop a “Code of Conduct” for consideration by the Board. It will clearly define the types of behaviour which are and are not acceptable within the organization. In particular, the code will deal with bullying, harassment, intimidation, retaliation and discrimination.
   The Board has encouraged the Council to take into account the existing “Code of Conduct for Trustees”. We know there are well-established definitions of various types of behaviour; we hope these will be used, and that the Code will give examples of them. We all believe that it would also be helpful to consider the “codes of conduct” already adopted by the various organizations which employ us, as well as examples from charities that have volunteer members.
3. Procedures for dealing with alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct. For some time, the Board has had a Complaints Procedure Working Group. This group developed a draft Complaints Policy and set of procedures, which was reviewed and revised based on input from the Council. We have now agreed that a group of Council members will join a Joint Board-Council Working Group to determine the processes to be followed when an individual is alleged to have breached the Code of Conduct for Members of Cochrane.
   Specific attention will be paid to fairness, equity, and the balance between an individual’s rights to privacy and the need for transparency.
   The Board wants to be able to approve, as soon as possible, a comprehensive procedure or set of procedures that will cover not only complaints about the behaviour of individual members (as discussed above) but will also cover complaints about decisions and actions that people take in their Cochrane roles. We already have procedures in place that cover employees and some that cover decisions made by the Editor-in-Chief.

We are grateful to have received the wide variety of views, concerns and suggestions of Cochrane members in recent weeks and months. We look forward to working collaboratively to advance Cochrane’s principles, in particular those of openness, transparency, respect and support for one another.