The UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) recently launched a call inviting applications to establish Global Health Research Units and Global Health Research Groups http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/funding/global-health. UK Higher Education Institutions and Research Institutes are being invited to work in partnership with low and middle income countries (LMICs, as defined by the DAC list) to deliver research up to the value of £7m that benefits people living in those countries.

NETSCC, who are managing the call, are seeking experts based within the Cochrane network to become peer reviewers for these applications to help identify the strongest ones for funding. We are looking for people working at a senior level who would be able to comment on the importance, quality and deliverability of the proposed programmes of work. We are particularly keen to invite experts based in LMICs, but if you are based in a non-LMIC and are working in any area of global health research we are also keen to hear from you.

Call close: 26 January

Tasks sent to reviewers: 7 February

Deadline for comments: 14 February

This short timeline is due to the requirements around allocating the funding by April 2017, so we would ask reviewers to hold this time in their diary.

If you would be interested in signing up to support this important work, please e-mail NIHRglobalhealth@soton.ac.uk .

Update: abstract submission deadline extended to 15 March

This year, in place of our annual Colloquium, Cochrane is partnering with Campbell Collaboration, Guidelines International Network, Joanna Briggs Institute and the International Society for Evidence-based Health Care for the first ever Global Evidence Summit, a premiere event in evidence-based policy. The Summit will be hosted by Cochrane South Africa in Cape Town on 13 -16 September 2017.

Cochrane would like to encourage groups within the Cochrane Community to submit abstracts, workshops, and special sessions as they would to the annual Colloquia. The key difference with the Global Evidence Summit is that submissions are more likely to be accepted if they are relevant to participants from the other partners helping to organize the Summit, and link to this Summit’s theme of ‘Using evidence. Improving lives.’ We have an event lined up that aims to showcase the luminaries in the field, and to challenge and stimulate policymakers and practitioners on how to base their decisions on the best available evidence.

The Summit’s Scientific Committee is currently planning the programme so that the main plenary themes thread into a select number of special sessions each day, ensuring momentum for these topics as well as providing a chance to delve deeper. We will announce the main themes in the next few weeks and share with the Community.

If you are a facilitator of a workshop that regularly appears at Colloquia, we would be delighted if you would submit your content to the Global Evidence Summit. If elements of your workshop can be developed further to consider our partner organizations and/or the main themes of the Summit – even better!

In February we will provide a confirmed list of Cochrane business meetings and other sessions that will take place at the Summit, as agreed by Cochrane’s Senior Management Team. Meeting space at the Summit is limited, as slots are shared with our partners. Any other Cochrane business meetings will need to happen at the Cochrane Mid-Year Meeting or outside of this year’s Global Evidence Summit. The Annual General Meeting is confirmed and will include the annual Cochrane awards and prizes.

Cochrane Symposia such as Methods or Knowledge Translation can be submitted to the Summit as either special sessions or as workshops. Again, the abstracts will need to consider our partner organizations and the main themes of the event.

The Global Evidence Summit also has a call open for ‘satellite’ events. Satellite events are full- or half-day workshops or symposia that will occur prior to 13 September. Submissions should further the event goals, and foster interaction and the development of partnerships. The Local Organizing Committee will help source a venue, catering, and equipment, but the costs of satellite events fall to the facilitating organization.

Key links

• Call for abstracts
• Call for workshops
• Call for special sessions
• Call for satellite events
• Prizes and awards

Please note that the call for abstracts, workshops, special sessions, and satellite events closes on 15 March.

If you have any further questions regarding submissions to the Global Evidence Summit, please contact Holly Millward at hmillward@cochrane.org.

We are very pleased to announce that Cochrane South Africa has appointed Charles Shey Wiysonge as its new Director, effective December 2016. The Founding Director of Cochrane South Africa, Jimmy Volmink, will be stepping down from managing day-to-day operations at the Centre, but will continue to serve as Chair of the Global Organizing Committee for the 2017 Global Evidence Summit.

To find out more, please read the full story on cochrane.org. 

We are pleased to announce the 10 successful titles from the third Cochrane Review Support Programme (CRSP) funding round.

1. Airway physical examination tests for detection of difficult airway management in apparently normal patients (Anaesthesia, Critical and Emergency Care)
    
2. Atraumatic restorative treatment versus conventional restorative treatment for the management of dental caries (Oral Health)
    
3. Cognitive rehabilitation for spatial neglect following stroke (Stroke)
    
4. Interventions for preventing upper gastrointestinal bleeding in people admitted to intensive care units (Upper GI and Pancreatic Diseases)
    
5. Interventions for weight reduction to improve survival in obese women with endometrial cancer (Gynaecological, Neuro-oncology and Orphan Cancers)
    
6. Lifestyle intervention for improving school achievement in overweight or obese children and adolescents (Developmental, Psychosocial and Learning Problems)
    
7. Macrolides for bronchiectasis/Oral versus inhaled antibiotics for bronchiectasis (Airways)
    
8. Methods of consumer involvement in developing healthcare policy and research, clinical practice guidelines and patient information material (Consumers and Communication)
    
9. Non-pharmacological interventions for treating chronic prostatitis/ chronic pelvic pain syndrome (Urology)
    
10. Vaccines for preventing influenza in the elderly (Acute Respiratory Infections)

We received 16 applications from 12 Groups. To evaluate the applications, we convened an international assessment panel comprising seven Cochrane contributors and consumers of Cochrane Reviews, who generously shared their time and expertise:

Maya Elin O'Neil, AHRQ PCOR K12 Scholar; Neuropsychologist, VA Portland Health Care System, Assistant Professor, Oregon Health and Science University, Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology & Department of Psychiatry

Dr Urbà González, Unit of Dermatology, CLĺNICA GO&FER, Barcelona, Spain

Dr Richard Lehman, Hightown Surgery, Oxford, UK

Prof Ashraf F Nabhan, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Dr Sera Tort, Cochrane Editorial Unit, London, UK

Dr David Tovey, Editor in Chief, the Cochrane Library, Cochrane Editorial Unit, London, UK

Dr. Jorge Zepeda - Secretary of Health of Florianópolis, Brazil / University of Leeds, UK

The panel members assessed the applications according to the criteria outlined in the application form and gave each review an overall score out of 10. The maximum possible score for each review was 70 (10 points x 7 assessors).

The next funding round will open sometime in April 2017 and will be advertised via the usual Cochrane communication channels.

Consultation on the draft document “Consumer involvement in Cochrane: developing the Statement of Principles” 

Closing date for feedback: 31 December 2016

Dear colleagues,
During 2015, the Cochrane Consumer Network undertook its Structure and Function Review, examining key elements about consumer involvement in Cochrane, and the ways in which it is supported. The report from this review is available online; amongst other things, the review showed that the ways in which consumers are currently involved in Cochrane varies significantly across the organization. For example, the review found that there is:

• little consensus about the best way to involve consumers in Cochrane activities;
• no consistent approach to the way Review Groups, Fields, and authors involve consumers in the review process;
• lack of support for authors, Review Groups and others in the form of guidance, resources, and tools for working with consumers;
• wide variation in the amount of resources available for those who involve consumers in reviews;
• difficulty in demonstrating the impact and value of consumer involvement.

To address these concerns, in 2016 the Consumer Network Executive prepared the Consumer Delivery Plan to 2020. The plan sets out eight key priorities for the development of consumer involvement in Cochrane. The first priority is to “Develop and adopt a statement of principles about consumer involvement in Cochrane”: a shared agreement on the consumer role and how the whole organization can work with consumers will make our work clearer, reduce variations and uncertainty, and improve our effectiveness. It will also explain to our external partners how we include consumers in our work.

A task group comprising consumers, authors, and others has drafted the statement and will steer the consultation process, refine the statement in line with responses, and present the final draft to the Consumers Executive and Cochrane Steering Group.

Consultation and next steps
Comments on this draft Statement of Principles document are warmly invited from anyone with an interest in consumer involvement in Cochrane: consumers (patients, care givers, family members, people who support patient and public involvement in research, and citizens generally), review authors, members of Cochrane Review Groups, Fields, Centres and Branches, Cochrane staff, and Cochrane’s external partners, funders, and those who use Cochrane evidence.

• Consumer involvement in Cochrane: developing the statement of Principles [PDF]
   

Please submit your feedback and comments via our online survey until the closing date of 31 December 2016.

You can also join the conversation on Facebook and on Twitter by searching for @cochraneconsumr.

If you are attending the 2016 Cochrane Colloquium in Seoul, please come and join the discussion about this statement.

The final draft ‘Statement of Principles’ will be presented to the Cochrane Board, and will guide future consumer involvement in Cochrane and in particular the Cochrane Consumer Delivery Plan to 2020 and beyond.

If you have any other questions about the statement, please email Richard Morley.

Best wishes

Richard Morley
Consumer Coordinator

Cochrane Crowd , Cochrane’s new citizen science platform, is a global community of almost 4,000 volunteers who are helping to classify the research needed to support informed decision-making about healthcare treatments.

Cochrane Crowd would like your help to achieve one million classifications  by the end of the year. Help Cochrane Crowd get over the line by joining the 48 hour Citation Screening Challenge on 19-21 December.

To find out more, read the full story on cochrane.org or head to Cochrane Crowd.

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.

Cochrane and the Epistemonikos Foundation are delighted to announce the launch of our official partnership aimed at improving the knowledge base for making decisions in health care and global health policy.

The close alignment of objectives, values, products, and services between Cochrane and Epistemonikos has existed for some years. Both organizations believe that systematic and rigorous approaches to research synthesis lead to better-informed choices by policymakers, practitioners, and the public, and thus to better health outcomes for people throughout the world.

The Epistemonikos Foundation is a non-profit organization whose core objectives are to bring evidence closer to those making health decisions through technology and innovation, primarily via the Epistemonikos database. The database was established in 2009 and by the end of 2016 is expected to include close to 100,000 systematic reviews.

Cochrane and Epistemonikos wish to continue our history of working together by establishing a long-term collaboration to build on our respective strengths and together develop products and services to support the healthcare community. To this end our organizations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to structure and focus our collaborative work for the next five years.

Julian Elliott, Cochrane Lead for Evidence Systems, said: ‘Many within Cochrane have been working closely with Epistemonikos for some time and using the great resources provided by the Epistemonikos database. We are thrilled to see this relationship move into a new phase of close and productive partnership and are looking forward to many more joint initiatives.’

These sentiments were echoed by Epistemonikos Co-Founder and Chairman Gabriel Rada, who said: ‘Epistemonikos started as a small project that was born within Cochrane. In some way it was conceived to complement the role of Cochrane, and for the same reason we have a common vision, methods, and ethos. Now the project is mature and ready for greater challenges. We are thrilled to partner Cochrane in this endeavour.’

For more information on the partnership and plans for the future, please contact the Cochrane Central Executive team.

We're posting all the highlights from the 2016 Cochrane Colloquium here - watch this space as we'll continue to update with new stories as we receive them!

Colloquium by the numbers

• 813 participants from 49 countries
• 96 workshops
• 191 posters
• 151 oral presentations

Plenary and AGM videos now available
Videos from all four plenary sessions, including the Annual Cochrane Lecture, as well as the full 2016 Annual General Meeting, are now available on Cochrane's YouTube channel.

Colloquium stories
People who were part of the #CochraneSeoul experience are sharing their stories - read a blog post from the UK-based Evidence Synthesis team, a blog post from Cochrane Croatia, a blog post from Cochrane Australia, and  a Storify of key tweets from a US contributor. And if you've got a story to share, let us know!

2016 Cochrane prize and award winners
Each year Cochrane presents a number of prizes and awards to contributors to recognize contributions to our work and organization made in various ways - find out more about the 2016 selections.

Cochrane Community's response to Strategy to 2020
Cochrane's 2016 Annual General Meeting included a Special Session where the Cochrane Community had the opportunity to share their stories of responding to the challenges of Strategy to 2020. As well as live presentations from a selection of Cochrane Groups from around the world, the session included this video highlighting just a few stories among many of what Strategy to 2020 means to Cochrane Groups and their work within local contexts:

Steering Group decisions from the 2016 Cochrane Colloquium
Read about the many decision coming from the meeting of the Steering Group.

Seoul Colloquium Pictures
Browse through pictures taken at the Colloquium! You are welcome to use these pictures on your Cochrane website, newsletters, and social media. If you have pictures you would like to contribute, please contact mumoquit@cochrane.org

Andrew Herxheimer Memorial Meeting
Friends’ Meeting House, St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW
Tuesday 15 November 2016, 10am for a 10.30 start
 
We very much hope that you will be able to join us on Tuesday 15 November 2016 to remember our colleague Andrew Herxheimer (1925-2016). We will celebrate his extraordinary contributions, in particular to the fields of pharmacology, patients’ experiences, and The Cochrane Collaboration.

We will also take great pleasure in remembering his warmth, charm and humour, his editorial skills and enthusiasm for plain English, and of course the constant puns. Indeed, the Guardian obituary writer noted that Andrew used ‘words as precision tools’ and ‘punned in four languages’.

There will be talks and photographs, personal reflections from Andrew’s daughters Sophie and Charlotte, and from his wife, Christine.

Confirmed speakers include Iain Chalmers, Nicky Britten, Anita Hardon, Gabriele Lucius-Hoene, Trish Greenhalgh,  Jeffrey Aronson and Sue Ziebland.
  
To cover the costs, including venue hire, coffee, lunch, and tea we are inviting people to pay £45 a head. Any money that is left over will be donated to the DIPEx charity, of which Andrew was the co-founder (with Ann McPherson) and a trustee until his death.

See here to book and pay for your place. [old link removed]

Where financial constraints, or the use of online booking, would be a barrier to participation, please contact Elizabeth Woolliams for assistance (01865  617844, elizabeth.woolliams@phc.ox.ac.uk).

Cochrane Complementary Medicine is pleased to announce our 2016 bursary scheme, made possible through funds from the US National Institutes of Health, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. The purpose of this bursary scheme is to ensure that reviews relevant to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are completed and published in The Cochrane Library. 

Funding offered
Two review proposals in the amount of $5,000 USD each will be funded. The funding must be paid directly to the individual bursary recipient; it cannot be paid to the recipient's institution. 

Eligibility requirements

• Review must be registered with a Cochrane Review Group, and the relevant protocol/review must already be published in The Cochrane Library;

• the topic of the review must relate to CAM (see scope in Call for Applications); and

• bursaries will be targeted to reviews for which substantial progress has already been made and whose completion has been stalled due to a lack of funding.

Timeline
Completed application forms should be e-mailed to Susan Wieland by 29 November 2016. Forms sent by postal delivery or fax will not be accepted. Successful candidates will be notified by 10 January 2017. Funds will be distributed to successful applicants in a single installment, after the award notification. Funds must be paid to the individual recipients of the bursary, and not to their institutions.

For more information (e.g., the assessment criteria, additional details about eligibility and application procedures), please see the full Call for Applications and Application Form.