The Cochrane Review Network communities announce their strategic plans that will guide the work of our Cochrane Review Groups (CRGS) until 2020

The Cochrane Review Group (CRG) Networks within Cochrane, each have a Network team comprising of a Senior Editor, Associate Editor and a Network Support Fellow – see here for more information on their structure and function.

Now, following comprehensive consultation and finalization with their CRG community at Cochrane’s Edinburgh Colloquium in September, the Network’s Senior and Associate Editors are delighted to announce their strategic plans that will guide their work over the next two years:

• Acute and Emergency Care
• Brain, Nerves and Mind
• Cancer
• Children and Families
• Circulation and Breathing
• Long-term Conditions and Ageing
• Musculoskeletal, Oral Skin and Sensory
• Public Health and Health Systems

The CRG Network’s Strategic Plans are based on five key objectives:

1. Supporting Cochrane review production and capacity
2. Evaluating Network scope and prioritization of topics
3. Fostering collaboration within the Network and with the wider Cochrane community
4. Supporting knowledge translation to increase the impact of Cochrane reviews
5. Ensuring accountability and sustainability of the Network

This is an exciting new development for Cochrane, working collectively to improve review production and editorial processes, which in turn aim to improve the quality of Cochrane reviews. These strategic plans also mean that the review questions chosen are the right ones for professionals, patients and policymakers, and are prioritized through interaction with relevant stakeholders, leading to higher impact in adoption in health guidelines and policies in the future.

We will regularly monitor and evaluate the implementation of these strategic plans and will publish our results with the Cochrane community every three months.

We would like to sincerely thank the Cochrane CRG community for their hard work in devising these plans and we are energized to support you all in implementing these exciting and innovative activities during the coming years.

Karla Soares-Weiser
Cochrane's Deputy Editor in Chief

Making Cochrane evidence accessible to non-English speakers is a priority for us. More than 5,000 translations of Cochrane Review plain language summaries/abstracts were published in 2017. Translation activities are led by local Cochrane groups and their translator communities, the majority of which are volunteer based.

This is why translation teams and geographical centres play a key role in Cochrane’s knowledge translation strategy. During the 25th Cochrane Colloquium in Edinburgh some of the members of the Cochrane Community shared with us their goals and achievements in different language settings.

A warm thank you to all our wonderful translation teams - we are very proud of the work we have accomplished and excited about what is to come!

• Find out more about our translations projects
• Help translate Cochrane evidence

Following a period of nominations, we’re very pleased that 18 candidates are standing for election to the Governing Board in this election. They are listed on elections.cochrane.org and here you can read more about the them, why they’re standing for election, and what they plan to do for Cochrane if elected.

There are four (4) positions available on the Board for this election, which is open to Cochrane Members. Candidates do not have to be a leader of a Cochrane Group and the Board is looking for a diverse and international range of candidates. Voting will open on 22 November 2018 and close on 10 December 2018 (12:00 GMT).

All members as defined by the Membership Terms & Conditions will be entitled to vote in the election. To check your membership status, please see https://join.cochrane.org/your-membership. If you have questions about your status, you can email membership@cochrane.org. Instructions on how to vote will be sent to you on 22 November 2018.

Cochrane places high regard on minimizing bias, promoting access, and enabling wide participation. For these reasons, canvassing for specific candidates is prohibited. It should be noted that:

• Any Cochrane individual, Group or committee may encourage members to participate in elections without endorsing specific candidates;
• Cochrane leaders or leadership committees (such as Executives) should not publicly endorse specific candidates.

Questions about any aspects of the elections process, or concerns about a candidate’s eligibility, can be raised with Lucie Binder, Senior Advisor to the CEO (Governance & Management) and Electoral Officer for this election.

Best wishes to all candidates standing!

A group of Cochrane members recently submitted a letter to the Board detailing "four major policy issues for Cochrane".

You’re invited to read their letter and the Board’s response.

To learn more about the Cochrane Council, the organization’s representative body for Cochrane members, please visit their section.

Registration for the 2019 Governance Meetings in Krakow, Poland is now open. Find out more about:

• Full programme for the 31 March - 5 April
• Venue and location
• Hotel options nearby
• Registration details

Full details are available on our events pages, here.

It’s been a busy time for the Working Group looking at ‘Improving and Upscaling’ Knowledge Translation (KT) Products since the Community Survey over the summer. In this blog we look at the results of the survey and our plans for the future.

Infographics, blogshots, policy briefings, press releases and videos… these are just some examples of KT products that Cochrane groups are using in order to try to ensure that the evidence is available to the people who need it in a format in which they can use it for health decision making. Over the summer the members involved in the KT Working Group looking at developing KT products ran a survey open to all of the Cochrane Community. The survey tried to identify what products are currently being used by people in Cochrane, which products people have had good results with, and what we can learn from great KT products outside Cochrane. 

The survey had 77 responses, from 32 countries. Responders came from across the Cochrane community with six Cochrane Fields, 16 Cochrane Review Groups and 17 Geographically orientated groups submitting an official response.  The results showed that a wide range of different methods are already being used to share Cochrane evidence with the most popular being updating the website, developing and sharing blogshots, and presenting evidence at conferences. Unsurprisingly social media is a big deal! Most groups are using Twitter and Facebook to spread the word, with other social media platforms popular in specific regions around the world.

Current and planned use of social media across all survey participants

Some of the major messages that came through the survey included that respondents were:

• eager to develop KT products themselves but felt there was a lack of time, resources and support for doing this. They requested more guidance and templates to help them.
• particularly interested to know more about developing included infographics, blogshots, Cochrane corners, videos, podcasts, and using Wikipedia more
• interested in developing skills to be able to create communication strategies and at getting better at using Social Media
• keen to know more about how to evaluate and track the impact of KT products produced

So what’s next? The Working Group has reviewed the results and will be working on a number of projects over the coming months.  These include:

• developing ‘dissemination kits’ for different audiences including templates and guidance for KT products and platforms such as blogshots, press releases, Facebook and Twitter.
• webinars to enable groups to use social media more effectively
• piloting the use of infographics for specific reviews
• developing tools and training to explore the ‘basic principles of dissemination’

New resources will produced over the coming months and will be additions to the existing ‘Disseminating Cochrane Evidence’ section of the KT resources website. 

KT Working Group have already made some resources available on the website, including advice on making effective use of social media, how to communicate evidence to journalists, resources for presenting work at conferences and help to produce multimedia materials like podcasts and videos. Take some time to browse through all our great resources on disseminating Cochrane evidence - and check back often as we will be adding more!

Thank you for all your help responding to the survey, and please get in touch by emailing support@cochrane.org if you have any comment or ideas.

Anne Littlewood
Karen Head
Francesca Gimigliano

Cochrane Classmate could change how evidence production is taught in classrooms around the world.

 Brought to you by the Cochrane Crowd team, Classmate is a trainers’ toolkit that allows you to create exciting, interactive tasks that help your students learn about evidence production. It is easy to use, and its first release is now available free of charge to anyone interested. Join the growing number of teachers and trainers using this innovative online learning environment.

This webinar will introduce you to Classmate, including how to create a learning activity, invite students to that activity, and monitor their progress.  You’ll see the modules currently available on Classmate and hear about others launching soon.

Tuesday 20th November 12.30-1.30pm GMT

Learn more at classmate.cochrane.org/

Support for Project Transform was provided by Cochrane and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (APP1114605). The contents of the published material are solely the responsibility of the Administering Institution, a Participating Institution or individual authors and do not reflect the views of the NHMRC.

Looking for support for your Priority Setting process? The Knowledge Translation ‘Embedding Prioritisation’ Working Group might be able to help!

Setting research priorities is essential to ensure Cochrane produces the right reviews. It can also be the foundation for knowledge translation, allowing consumers, healthcare professionals, policy makers, and others who use Cochrane Reviews to engage with Cochrane Groups at the earliest possible stage in the review production process.

We are pleased to announce that the 'Priority Setting' section of the KT Resources website has been updated with a video presentations from the Edinburgh Colloquium.

This video provides a 15-minute overview of the Guidance Note as presented at the Priority Setting Workshop. In addition, at this workshop there were two questions that have been made into additional videos: this video focuses on the ‘Mandatory Standards’ required in order to include a topic onto the Priority Review List and this video discusses the challenges of priority setting in Review Groups which have large scopes.

We have also added a video from the workshop presenting a case study from Cochrane Consumer and Communication Group. Listen about how they came up with a prioritization plan, how they implemented it, and what they did with the results.

Getting ready or going through a prioritisation process? The Knowledge Translation ‘Embedding Prioritisation’ Working Group is  providing individualised support for review of prioritisation plans or advice on prioritisation methods. Please get in touch and let us know we may help you further!

We are trying to put together some examples and templates for existing prioritization processes. Take a look at our existing collection of case studies! Please share your experiences and learning with the Cochrane community by sharing your story or templates.

Additional Resources:

• Interactive webinar on the 9th of November and the 3rd December. 8am UK time
• Priority Setting webpages

After considerable reflection over many months, and as hinted at during my presentation at this year’s Annual General Meeting, I have decided that the time is right for me to step down from the role of Cochrane’s Editor in Chief. I plan to leave at the end of May next year.
 
With the successful launch of the new Cochrane Library, new Networks, an Editorial Board and the Scientific Committee all up and running, I strongly believe that Cochrane is set fair. In my judgement, these are strong foundations on top of the strong foundations I inherited. I am confident that this is the right time to change the hand at the tiller for Cochrane.
 
Working together, we have enjoyed considerable success over the past 10 years. I believe that our review production community is working much more closely together and is delivering high quality, relevant reviews ever more consistently. As Matthew Page and colleagues described in 2016, despite the fact that the quality of non-Cochrane Reviews had increased over the preceding decade, we have retained the clear water between Cochrane and non Cochrane reviews in terms of the quality of reporting. I am proud to have made a contribution to our success, but am equally aware that everything we have achieved, we have achieved together.
 
This role has sometimes been challenging, sometimes extraordinary, always interesting. I have had experiences I could never have imagined possible. I owe you all a great deal, and it has been a privilege and a considerable pleasure to serve you in this role. There’s an ocean of thanks I need to say to so many people, but there will be plenty of time for that in the months to come. I will continue to serve you to the best of my ability over that period, and hope that I can contribute to a smooth handover.

David Tovey
Editor in Chief

Cochrane’s Governing Board is seeking to elect 4 new members

We are looking for candidates with a passion for Cochrane, a belief in its power to improve healthcare decision making worldwide, and the ability to support the management of the organization.

Cochrane is an international organization and a registered charity in the UK, and members of the Governing Board from around the world are ‘Trustees’ of the charity. The Trustees carry ultimate responsibility for Cochrane and this is a critically important role.

The Board works as a team, including members with complementary skills and backgrounds. Candidates standing for election must be Cochrane Members but do not have to be a leader of a Cochrane Group. We are looking for a diverse and international range of candidates, and welcome nominations from people with the skills required to fulfil the responsibilities of a Trustee.

In this election, we are especially seeking candidates who have one or more of the following areas of expertise, in order to complement those of existing Board members:

• Charity Governance (in any charitable organization around the world)
• Organizational Finance and Resource Management
• People Management (often called ‘Human Resources’ in English) and Organizational Development
• Knowledge of the importance of Consumer involvement in Evidence Production and Health Policy
• Advocating for Evidence
• Widening Access, Participation, Reach and Impact of research 
• Fundraising and Development

This is an exciting opportunity to join the team providing strategic oversight to Cochrane, making sure the organization’s work is effective and innovative, and that it delivers on its mission to promote evidence-informed health decision making by producing high-quality, relevant, accessible systematic reviews and other synthesized research evidence.

In line with the usual requirements for UK charity Trustees, these are voluntary, unpaid roles. Each year you will need to commit to attending at least three face-to-face meetings at different locations internationally, and at least two teleconferences. You will be expected to be a member of one or more Board Sub-Committees. Your expenses will be paid to attend meetings. The term of appointment is three years, from December 2018 to December 2021. In 2019, you should be available to travel to London, UK, 19-20 January; Krakow, Poland, 1-5 April; and Santiago, Chile, 22-25 October.

The deadline for nominations is Wednesday 14 November 2018. To find out how to stand for election, please visit elections.cochrane.org.

With best wishes,

Cochrane Governing Board