We are pleased to announce that the fourth funding round of the Cochrane Review Support Programme (CRSP) pilot is now open.

There are two important changes to note with this round:

1. The number of grants has been reduced to eight (16 grants in total for 2017).
2. We will now offer an extended due date for complex reviews. The due date for standard intervention reviews remains the same and shall be not more than 12 months from the date of the award, however for reviews that include complex methodologies or topics, the due date shall be not more than 18 months from the date of the award.More details about the eligibility criteria for the extended due date are available in the guidance. 

It is important that applications are made using the new form and guidance. Applications made using the old forms will not be accepted.  

Key features of the programme:

• All Cochrane Review Groups may apply for the awards
• Groups may nominate no more than two titles – either new reviews or review updates – from the December 2016 version of the Cochrane Priority Review List. Titles added to the list after December 2016 cannot be proposed for this funding round
• 8 grants of £5,000 each will be awarded
• Reviews must be published a maximum of 12 or 18 months after the awards are notified
• All successful reviews must be submitted to the CEU screening prior to publication
• The funds are intended to accelerate publication of high priority reviews/updates that are already planned or underway and will therefore meet the publication deadline
• We will aim to decide the list of successful reviews and to have notified the applicants by mid-June 2017

Cochrane recognises that these awards are insufficient to meet the full costs of conducting reviews; rather, they are intended to facilitate and possibly accelerate publication of high priority reviews that are already planned or underway.

Applications close at 5pm GMT, Friday 19 May 2017.

A new Cochrane Council has been established to represent Cochrane’s various communities and provide a forum for discussion of high-level issues that cut across all Cochrane’s Groups and contributors. The Council was established as part of the 2016 Governance Restructure Project, and met for the first time at the Mid-Year Meetings in Geneva on 6 April 2017.

Julie Brown (author representative, NZ), and Fergus Macbeth (Co-Ed representative, UK) were elected as Co-Chairs by the members of the Council, and full information on the Council members and Terms of Reference is available on the Council page on the Cochrane Community website.

At its first meeting, the Council:
•    reviewed and adopted their Terms of Reference;
•    reviewed the agenda and papers for the Governing Board meeting also held in Geneva, and sent feedback to the Board;
•    discussed the proposed thresholds for attaining and retaining membership under Cochrane’s new membership scheme to be introduced in 2017;
•    discussed and endorsed the Consumer Network’s document, “Consumer involvement in Cochrane: Statement of principles”.

The Council welcomes requests from the community for matters to be discussed at its future meetings. Matters raised should be of wide relevance to all Cochrane’s Groups and contributors. Contact information is available on the Council website.

Cochrane's 2016 Annual Review is now available for download and dissemination. To find out more about what we achieved in 2016, what's happening across the organization in 2017, and links to share with stakeholders, please see cochrane.org for more information.

The University of Split School of Medicine, in Split, Croatia, had the pleasure of hosting Cochrane Poland’s director, Malgorzata Bala, from 6^th to 9^th March, 2017, during her visit to Cochrane Croatia. Given Croatia and Poland’s similar health and education systems, cultural background and Cochrane group setting (both are based at a medical school), it was felt that a visit would be mutually beneficial and contribute towards future progress and collaboration.

During her visit to Split, Dr Bala met with several members of Cochrane Croatia and attended a regular monthly meeting, where she shared her knowledge of conducting systematic reviews of non-controlled studies and her experience in involving medical students in the conduct of Cochrane Systematic Reviews. While at the medical school, Malgorzata gave a well attended presentation to staff on ‘Evidence based health care – achievements and challenges in Poland’.

Dr Małgorzata Bała is head of Cochrane Poland, established in 2015 as a Branch of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, and head of the Department of Hygiene and Dietetics at the Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow, Poland. She is a specialist in public health and epidemiology and since 2005 has been teaching EBM to students. Dr Małgorzata Bała has been involved in Cochrane activities since 2000 and is an author and co-author of several Cochrane reviews.

Cochrane Croatia and Cochrane Poland will explore the possibility of organising study visits, both for students and staff, via ERASMUS, and, in the meantime, agreed for two students from the Medical College in Krakow to present at the upcoming 9^th Croatian Cochrane Symposium, on the topic of ‘Evidence  based dental medicine’, to be held from 9^th-10^th June at the University of Split School of Medicine.

Irena Zakarija-Grković, Co-Director Cochrane Croatia

The March for Science took place on Saturday, 22 April 2017 - also known as Earth Day, a commemoration of environmental advocacy and science in the public interest established in the United States nearly 50 years ago. The March took place in more than 600 cities around the world, to champion the science that upholds the common good.

Cochrane contributors participated in marches worldwide and are sharing photos with us and on the #sciencemarch and #MarchforScience hashtags on social media. If you’ve got photos or stories to share, please post them to the Cochrane Facebook Group, tag @cochranecollab on Twitter, or send them to the Communications and External Affairs team.

Cochrane CEO Mark Wilson quoted in coverage of the London March in the Guardian.

Cochrane is delighted to announce today the development of Cochrane Global Mental Health: a partnership that brings together the five Cochrane Review Groups that cover mental health conditions and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and Service Evaluation, Section of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology.
 

Cochrane Global Mental Health is located in the city of Verona, Italy, and is affiliated with the University of Verona, where the WHO Collaborating Centre is based. Cochrane Global Mental Health will promote evidence-based decision making in mental health care in low- and middle-income countries by supporting and training new authors of Cochrane Reviews, as well as working with clinicians, professional associations, policy-makers, patients, and the media to encourage the dissemination and use of Cochrane evidence globally.

Activities of Cochrane Global Mental Health will be co-ordinated and led by Corrado Barbui, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and Service Organization, University of Verona, and Marianna Purgato, Post-Doctoral Researcher affiliated with the WHO Collaborating Centre.

• Read more about the launch on Cochrane.org
• Read the Cochrane Library Editorial: "Evidence-based interventions for global mental health: role and mission of a new Cochrane initiative" 
• Visit the Cochrane Global Mental Health website

2016 Dashboard is keeping us on track for 2017

Cochrane's Annual Dashboard presents some key metrics on our organizational performance over the previous calendar year. It includes data on Strategy to 2020 target achievements, and key metrics around the four Strategy to 2020 Goals. It’s an excellent tool to use to reflect on what we accomplished in 2016 and the work to be done in 2017.

View the full 2016 Dashboard.

Read more about Annual and Quarterly Dashboards.

Read more about Strategy to 2020.

The Governing Board has approved a new set of principles concerning the implementation of Cochrane's Charter of Good Management Practice. Effective March 2017, the principles of the Charter apply to directors and managers of all Cochrane Groups, as well as to members of the Central Executive team (CET). Thus all Cochrane staff and volunteers should expect that the behaviours and approaches of all Cochrane Group leaders and managers conform to the principles outlined in the Charter policy.

If you have questions about any aspect of this policy or the Charter, please contact a member of the CET.

The Agenda and Open Access papers for the Cochrane Governing Board meeting in Geneva are now available.

Cochrane Community members may be particularly interested in the following papers:

CEU Screening Guide

Knowledge Translation Strategy

Membership Thresholds

Report on 2016 Targets for Strategy to 2020

Report on the 2016-2017 Governing Board election

Structure and Function Review of Cochrane Fields final design proposals

What’s happening with the Organizational Policy Manual?

Following the launch of the new Cochrane Community site in early 2016, we have been working to complete the integration of content from the old Community site and other legacy sites to make all relevant information easily accessible in one location. As part of this process, we have undertaken an extensive review and revision of the Organizational Policy Manual (OPM), which for many years had served as a repository for a variety of organizational information.

During the OPM review, we determined that a significant amount of the content was obsolete, redundant, or relevant to operational information available elsewhere on Cochrane.org, Community, or Group sites. As a result, we have relocated, re-directed, and turned off relevant content formerly housed in Sections 1 & 2 and Appendices of the OPM. Information relevant to Cochrane policies is now housed in the following locations:

• Editorial policies are available in the Editorial and Publishing Policy Resource (EPPR) on the Community website.
• Organizational policy information relevant to the wider organization and the general public is available in the ‘About us’ section on Cochrane.org.
• Organizational policy information relevant to the core Cochrane community is available in the ‘Organizational info’ section here on the Community site.

With current policy information available in one of these sections, most of the old OPM is now offline. The only section still located on the old website is operational information related to Review Groups and Methods Groups, which will eventually be updated and migrated to the new site as part of  the Structure & Function project. 

If you have any questions about this project, or feedback about missing, misdirected, or non-functional hyperlinks or content, please contact Nancy Owens.