In preparation for the Cochrane Board meeting in April in Geneva, we have prepared an update paper to inform the Cochrane community about work with our external partners. Some of the key developments to note:

• The planning for the Global Evidence Summit is progressing well and provides an opportunity to connect many of our external partners: sessions are being planned with various groups at WHO, G-I-N, Campbell, JBI, and consumer organizations.
• MoUs have been signed with Epistemonikos, G-I-N, and MAGIC, and with the March for Science.
• The work on the Partnership Toolkit, an online resource for Cochrane Groups to use for their own partnership development, will evolve alongside the Knowledge Translation Strategy, to ensure that they are connected and complementary; the next phase is scheduled to start following the Mid-Year Meeting in Geneva.

The annex in the paper provides a detailed overview per partner, also specifying the plans for the coming months. For further information please contact Sylvia De Haan, Partnerships Coordinator.

• Partnership Update (Q1 2017)

Registration for early bird tickets open until 30 June 2017

Registration has now opened for the first ever Global Evidence Summit! Register before the 30 June 2017 to get over 11% off the standard ticket price. 

This year, Cochrane, has joined with four other leading organizations – Guidelines International Network, Campbell Collaboration, International Society for Evidence-based Health Care, and Joanna Briggs Institute - to hold the first ‘Global Evidence Summit’ in Cape Town, South Africa from 13-16 September 2017.

Find out more at globalevidencesummit.org/registration-fees

Stipend applications open until 28 April 2017

The Global Evidence Summit have also launched a number of stipend and bursaries to help consumers, students, and other attendees based in developing countries to attend.

Find out if you are eligible to apply for one of the stipends or bursaries available. Cochrane are providing the annual consumer and developing country stipends. But the organisers have also received further funding to support delegates from a LMIC setting including policy makers and researchers as well as African-based students. Follow the link to find out whether you are eligible and how to apply. The deadline for Cochrane and Global Evidence Summit stipends is the 28 April 2017.

Find out more at globalevidencesummit.org/stipends-and-bursaries

Email: mailto:contact@globalevidencesummit.org

Twitter: @GESummit

Facebook: facebook.com/globalevidencesummit

Hashtag: #GESummit17

We regret to advise the Cochrane community that Michael Makanga has announced his resignation from the Cochrane Governing Board, due to changing demands in his primary role as Executive Director of the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). Michael’s resignation takes effect from 1st March. Although his time on the Governing Board was brief we would like to thank him for his service and his contributions to its work during a period of significant transition.

We will fill Michael’s now-open position on the Board later in the year as part of the planned process to recruit additional external representatives.

Lisa Bero and Cindy Farquhar
Co-Chairs, Cochrane Steering Group

The 2017 Mid-Year Meeting was hosted by Cochrane Switzerland in Geneva on 4-5 April, alongside other meetings that week.

Governing Board agenda and open access papers now available for Mid-Year Meeting.

The final report presenting results and conclusions from the CEU’s Plain Language Summary pilot project is now available.

Over the past six months, seven Cochrane Review Groups (CRGs) have been piloting the use of a Plain Language Summary (PLS) template and checklist developed by Cochrane Norway. CRG editorial staff have sent the template to their review authors, used the template to write PLSs themselves, and/or used the checklist on PLSs written by review authors.

CRG editorial staff involved in the pilot found the template to be useful and feasible to implement. While they had several suggestions about how we could improve the template, they all plan to use it after the pilot period has ended.

We still lack data about the experiences of review authors who have used the template. However, based on the positive feedback that the template received from editorial staff, the report suggests that the PLS template is made an official Cochrane resource. The report also suggests several issues that should or could be addressed, either before or after official approval.  

Current versions of the template and checklist that were used in the pilot are available on Cochrane Norway’s website.

If you have any comments or questions on the report's recommendations or suggested next steps, please get in touch with Julie Wood (jwood@cochrane.org).

• Final report
   

Any registered Author in Cochrane’s contacts database, Archie, with an active account will be eligible to vote.

Dear Cochrane Authors,

Voting is now open for the election of two (2) Author representatives to the new Cochrane Council.

To access the candidate statements and online voting form, please visit the Cochrane Community site, here: http://elections.cochrane.org/.

The deadline for voting is the end of Friday 10 March 2017 in any timezone. The two successful candidates will be announced in the week beginning 13 March 2017. Questions about any aspect of this process should be submitted to voting@cochrane.org.

Candidates standing:

The following eligible* candidates have put themselves forward for election (listed in alphabetical order):

1.    Lawrence Best
2.    Soumyadeep Bhaumik
3.    Julie Brown
4.    Agustín Ciapponi
5.    Tom Fahey
6.    Gill Gyte
7.    Vanessa Jordan
8.    Sarah Lensen
9.    Roshan das Nair
10.    Mohan Pammi
11.    María Ximena Rojas Reyes
12.    Lorainne Tudor Car
13.    Marialena Trivella

How to vote:

• Each voter gets one vote for each Author representative position available, so in this election, voters get to choose the two candidates they would like to see elected from the pool of candidates standing.
• Once you have read the candidate statements, above, please vote for two (2) candidates from the pool of thirteen (13) standing.

Eligibility to vote:

• Any registered Author in Cochrane’s contacts database, Archie, with an active account will be eligible to vote. This includes Authors who are not eligible to stand for election themselves as they have not published a Cochrane Review in the Cochrane Library.
• You can confirm you are eligible to vote by logging into Archie (archie.cochrane.org), searching for your person record, and confirming you have an active role, listed as “Yes” in the Author role in the Roles tab. If you do not have an Archie account, you may request one by contacting your Cochrane Review Group.

Reminder of the Council’s role:

The new Cochrane Council was established in November 2016 at the recommendation of the Governing Board, following a review in which directly elected Group representatives on the Board were replaced with representatives elected by the full Cochrane membership. The intention of establishing the Council is to ensure that Cochrane Groups retain an effective voice in Cochrane’s leadership and strategic decision-making. The purpose of the Council is to provide:

• A forum for Cochrane Groups to consider high-level matters affecting Cochrane as a whole;
• A mechanism to raise matters and provide input to the Governing Board on behalf of Cochrane Groups; and
• A forum to consider matters at the request of the Board and inform Board deliberations.

The initial Council will primarily include representatives drawn from, or with the recommendation of, the Group Executives. The Council will review and modify its membership over time, adjusting the balance of members, reflecting changes following the Structure and Function review, and bringing in additional members from other sectors of Cochrane’s community such as translators, knowledge translation hubs, etc.

Although Authors do not have their own Executive, they did have a representative on the Steering Group before it transitioned to the Governing Board. For this reason, there will be two Author representative positions on the Council at this stage.

With best wishes,

Mona Nasser

Cochrane Author, former Author representative on the Steering Group and current member of the Governing Board

Denise Thomson

Chair of the Governance Review Working Group* and member of the Governing Board

---

*For this first election, the Governance Reform Working Group** has agreed that any Author who has published at least one Cochrane Review in the Cochrane Library is eligible to stand for election. The Author’s name must be listed in the Authors section of the Cochrane Review, but that person does not have to be lead/correspondence Author on the Review.

• You do not need to be nominated by any other members of Cochrane in order to stand for election.
• You are eligible to stand even if you have also been eligible to stand as a different representative (e.g. for Managing Editors). 
• The term of membership will be two years. For more information on membership, please see the Council’s Terms of Reference.
• You must be available to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, for the Council’s first meeting on Thursday 6th April 2017. Your travel and accommodation costs, and other expenses, will be covered by Cochrane.

**Current Working Group members: Denise Thomson, Lisa Bero, Joerg Meerpohl.

The IKMD team is pleased to announce an update to Archie, effective 8 February 2017.
 
With this Archie update, we introduce a new translations component. This facilitates translation data processing to support future, optional full-text Cochrane Review translations in the Cochrane Library, and to make our translation technology infrastructure more robust and ready for future improvements.
 
Furthermore, we have implemented minor bug fixes and feature improvements. For a full breakdown of the fixes and new functionality available in Archie, please see the Archie Updates section of the Community website.
 
Should you come across any bugs or errors, please use the Archie Problem Reporting Form.
 
We value your input on Cochrane software, including Archie. We invite you to post your suggestions on our Archie Ideas forum, where others can vote and comment on these suggestions.

The Cochrane Governing Board, previously known as the Steering Group, met in December 2016. The meeting minutes are now available to view online. If you have any questions about the decisions or the work of the Governing Board, please contact the Central Executive team.

Additional resources:

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

Looking for help on your systematic review?

TaskExchange is an online platform that connects people needing help with their systematic review with people who have the time and skills to help.

If you’d like assistance with your review, in addition to talking to your author team members and Managing Editor, browse TaskExchange to find a helper, or post a task and watch the offers of assistance roll in!

Task poster Melina Willson, Managing Editor, Cochrane Breast Cancer Review Group located at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney, says:

“We used TaskExchange late last year and had a quick and positive response. Four articles were translated within a week for one of our Cochrane reviews on breast reconstruction. TaskExchange is a great platform to speed up what could otherwise be a laborious process of finding people to help on a review.”

TaskExchange can be used to find help for almost any systematic review task, including literature searching, article screening and translation, data extraction, statistical support, and consumer reviews. Helpers are usually acknowledged in the published review.

To get started with TaskExchange, sign up and browse members or post a task.

You can follow TaskExchange on Twitter to keep up with the latest news, and email taskexchange@cochrane.org for further information.

Dear Cochrane Members,

We write to you to express our concern regarding United States President Trump’s immigration and travel ban. As of 5 February, that ban has been suspended. Regardless, Cochrane is committed to a culture in which every individual is treated fairly and with respect. This ban violates two principles that we hold dear:

Collaboration - by fostering global co-operation, teamwork, and open and transparent communication and decision-­making.

Enabling wide participation - in our work by reducing barriers to contributing and by encouraging diversity.

Our vision is a world of improved health where decisions about health and health care are informed by high-quality, relevant and up-to-date synthesized research evidence. This can only be achieved through freedom to collaborate to advance science and health. The value in meeting in person and widely discussing and exchanging ideas cannot be underestimated. We recognize the distress that this ban is causing many of our members and the chilling effect it will have on our work and science overall.

In the coming days and weeks, Cochrane will be joining with other scientific and professional societies to formally protest this ban. If you have suggestions or ideas on how Cochrane could get involved, please share your ideas by emailing ban@cochrane.org.
 

Sincerely,
Lisa Bero and Cindy Farquhar, Co-Chairs
On behalf of Cochrane