Please find below the main decisions made by Steering Group at its meeting in Seoul. If you have any questions about these decisions, please contact your Steering Group Representative.

• Co-Chair election: The CSG elected Cindy Farquhar and approval of her appointment would be sought from the Cochrane members at the AGM.
• Structure and Function Review: The CSG approved the structure and function recommendations. For CRGs, Steering Group will work closely to support the Editor-in-Chief on the CRGs sustainability review and will provide support in completing this review in a shorter timeline.
• Governance: The CSG approved the final policies to implement the new Cochrane Governing Board and Council, should the members adopt the proposed changes to Cochrane’s Articles of Association at the AGM.
• 2017 Targets: The CSG approved the proposed Strategy to 2020 Target areas for 2017. Final Targets will be developed in consultation with executives and submitted for approval in December 2016, alongside the Plan & Budget.
• Spokesperson Policy: The revised Cochrane Spokesperson Policy was approved.
• CPAC: The CSG approved the disbanding of the Cochrane Policy Advisory Committee and the formation of the Cochrane Events Network.
• Auditors: The CSG approved the recommendation from the Finance, Investment and Audit Committee, a CSG sub-group, to appoint Sayer Vincent as Cochrane’s auditors for the 2016 financial year, for ratification at the AGM.
• Rehabilitation Field: The registration of a Cochrane Rehabilitation Field was approved.

The agenda and open acess papers can be found here. The full minutes will be available soon.

The next CSG face-to-face meeting is 5-7 April, 2017, in Geneva.

Cochrane Colloquia are our annual flagship events, bringing together Cochrane contributors from around the world to discuss, develop and promote Cochrane, and help shape its future.

The 2016 Cochrane Colloquium will be held in Seoul, South Korea from 23-27 October. For full information regarding the Colloquium, please visit the website.

• Key information
• Latest news
• Plenaries, speakers and symposia

Key information:

• Programme overview: colloquium.cochrane.org/programme-overview
• Registration fees: colloquium.cochrane.org/registration-fees
• Key dates: colloquium.cochrane.org/key-dates
• Website: colloquium.cochrane.org
• Hashtag: #CochraneSeoul

Latest news:

• The Colloquium app is now available!
  The app is available to download for free, for both Android and iOS (iPhone and iPad).
  
  To access the app, search for “Cochrane Colloquium” in either the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
  
  Please note that there are other, seemingly related apps available – neither is relevant to the Seoul Colloquium!
  
  1. “Cochrane Colloquium 2015”, the app for last year’s Colloquium, is still available on both platforms.
  
  2. “Cochrane UK & Ireland”, the app for the 2016 Cochrane UK & Ireland Symposium, is also still available on the Google Play Store.

• Sign-up for the Anne Anderson Walk
  The walk around Gyeongbokgung (Gyoengbok Palace) is a fundraising event for the Anne Anderson Award fund. The walk is on Wednesday 26 October at 14:30. The tour guides have been provided gratis. If you would like to sign-up for the walk, you can do so here. To donate to the award fund, click here.

  

• 2016 Annual General Meeting
  Cochrane’s Annual General Meeting will be held on Tuesday 25 October, at the Colloquium. Find out more, here.

• Sign-up now open for the full Colloquium schedule
  Sign-up for all the sessions you want to attend and create your own personal schedule for the Colloquium! You can also export the schedule to your online calendar. We'll be launching the Colloquium app in early October that will sync with your personal schedule. Details of the poster sessions are being finalised now and will be available from 21 September. 

• Very limited room availability at the Grand Hilton
  As of 25 August, we have been advised that very few rooms are available. We have removed the online reservation page - please contact the Hilton directly (via reservation.grandseoul@hilton.com 
   or T +82-2-2287-8428) to check if there are any rooms available.

Plenaries, speakers and symposia:

Plenary 1: Overdiagnosis and overtreatment in health care

In this session, the role of evidence-based health care and systematic reviews in limiting overdiagnosis and oversue will be discussed, including realignment of disease definition; quantification and monitoring of overdiagnosis; sensitisation of health professionals and patients; provision of balanced information on risk and benefits intervention; and the implications for Cochrane.

Speakers:

• Alexandra Barratt, Professor of Public Health, School of Public Health, University of Sydney

• Rita F. Redberg, Editor, JAMA Internal Medicine. Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, University of California, San Francisco

• Jenny Doust, Professor of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University

Plenary 2: Challenges and different approaches to improve the quality, timeliness and usability of Cochrane Reviews

The speakers in the plenary session have been asked to describe their experiences in making challenging decisions regarding the quality and usability of Cochrane reviews. Different perspectives and lively debate will be sought with particular focus on potential initiatives that are being explored and are consistent with the CEU vision for high quality and timely Cochrane Reviews that meets the needs of end-users and informs clinical care and health policy.

Speakers:

• James Thomas, Project Transform, Cochrane. Director of the EPPI-Centre’s Reviews Facility, Department of Health, England

• Karla Soares-Weiser, Deputy Editor in Chief, Cochrane Library & Cochrane Innovations

• Marguerite Koster, External Member, Cochrane Steering Group

• Harriet MacLehose, Senior Editor, Cochrane Library

• Claire Glenton, Director, Cochrane Norway

Plenary 3: Data transparency: where are we and what can we get?

Pressure to increase transparency of data in clinical research is growing as scientific academies, regulatory agencies, funders and international organisations join the call for more data transparency. In this session, recent issues in the open data movement, data access policies and its impact on health care are discussed. Some examples of the impact of lack of transparency in East Asia will highlighted.

Speakers:

• Kay Dickersin, Director, Cochrane United States. Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Trials & Evidence Synthesis

• Byung Joo Park, Professor, Department of Preventive Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine

• Lesley Stewart, Director, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York

• Rintaro Mori, Director, Cochrane Japan. Head of Department National Center for Child Health and Department of Clinical Epidemiology

Annual Cochrane Lecture: Four challenges for EBM and Cochrane’s future

Since the term evidence based medicine (EBM) was coined over 20 years ago it has had a remarkable global influence. But EBM is not a static set of concepts, set in stone tablets in the 1990s; it is a young and evolving discipline. The fundamental concept of systematic reviews – providing a periodic summary of all controlled trials to aid clinical care – may have changed little since the birth of Cochrane. However, how to best provide and apply these in practice continues to develop.

In this year’s Cochrane Lecture, Paul Glasziou will propose four areas requiring renewed or ongoing attention:

1. Improve dialogue between “evidologists” and clinicians
2. Treatment is the patient’s decision: support and promote shared decision making
3. Take non-drug interventions as seriously as pharmaceuticals
4. Sustain investment in automating evidence synthesis 

Speaker:

• Paul Glasziou, Professor, Evidence-Based Medicine at Bond University; Chair, International Society for Evidence-Based Health Care

#CochraneTech Symposium: The new ecosystem for evidence synthesis

Cochrane’s technological innovations are set to transform the way evidence for health is created and used. Join us at the #CochraneTech Symposium in Seoul to discover first-hand the emerging Cochrane ecosystem for evidence synthesis.

We’re preparing an exciting morning of talks and discussion centred around how Cochrane is using its technology to help both prepare systematic reviews more efficiently but also better deliver outputs to our end-users. The #CochraneTech Symposium is the premier event for those interested in the application and integration of existing and emerging technologies in the production of Cochrane systematic reviews and evidence synthesis in health care.

Since the inaugural #CochraneTech Symposium in Québec City in 2013 several ambitious technological strategies have been pursued by Cochrane, and we welcome you to join us in exploring this new ecosystem for evidence synthesis.

Methods Symposium: Living Systematic Reviews: Methods, Opportunities and Challenges

Living systematic reviews, as online summaries of healthcare research that are updated as new research becomes available, offer exciting possibilities in the new evidence ecosystem. Momentum is building around the living systematic review concept: a number of approaches are being piloted and Cochrane is at the forefront of these efforts. Living systematic reviews differ from traditional systematic reviews in several ways that have important implications for review methods and processes, affecting authors, editors and publishers. 

At this interactive symposium, we will explore what living systematic reviews actually are and their implications for Cochrane. Participants will hear from those who have been piloting living systematic review methods and will be invited to contribute their expertise as we explore the implications of LSRs for review methods and review production processes, plus the enablers within Cochrane to support their introduction.

Knowledge Translation (KT) Symposium

In 2016 Cochrane is embarking on the development of a Knowledge Translation (KT) Strategy, which will inform, facilitate and coordinate KT activities within Cochrane. We hope this strategy will scope knowledge translation activities for Cochrane, build on the Strategy to 2020 goals and provide a framework and co-ordination to support those who are undertaking knowledge translation activities in Cochrane. This framework will guide our knowledge translation work and ensure quality of outputs. We hope to establish mechanisms for better coordination of knowledge translation work within Cochrane so that organisational learning in this area flows through Cochrane.

In this symposium we will be presenting the current draft of Cochrane’s KT strategy. There will be brief presentations on the work around the strategy, an opportunity for discussion and input into further development of the strategy and the implementation plans accompanying it and what it will mean for knowledge translation in Cochrane.

Look forward to seeing you in Seoul in October!

We want to share some exciting news about changes in development for the Cochrane Library! We are developing an enhanced Cochrane Library with greater functionality that makes it easier for users to discover and use Cochrane content in their decision-making. Over the course of this year, we are redeveloping all aspects of the Cochrane Library to improve user experience.

The first changes will roll out in early 2017 and include: enhancements to the display and new features for Cochrane Reviews and other articles; enhancements to CENTRAL; linking of the CDSR and CENTRAL; an improved search and discovery interface.

We will also be including a new Spanish version of the Cochrane Library, incorporating the translated Cochrane Review content from La Bibliotheca Cochrane Plus, with a dedicated search functionality. The Cochrane Library will also incorporate Cochrane Clinical Answers, with over 1200 articles linked to Cochrane Reviews. Finally, a federated search feature will enable searches of other systematic reviews via Epistemonikos.

This project will form a major contribution to our Strategy to 2020 goal of making Cochrane the ‘home of evidence’ to inform health decision-making, building greater recognition of our work, and becoming the leading advocate for evidence-informed health care.

The Cochrane Library will maintain its familiar look-and-feel while improving the overall user experience. Researching user needs and stakeholder insights is a key component of development. We are doing this research through one-to-one user testing with Cochrane Library users and focus groups with members of the Cochrane community.

We are also taking this opportunity to remove several databases (DARE, HTA, EED) from the Cochrane Library collection as they are no longer being updated or were not well used currently. The Cochrane Methodology Register will be migrated and archived on the Cochrane Methods website. The About The Cochrane Collaboration database will also be retired; further information for groups currently published modules will be circulated in the next few weeks.

2017 is the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the Cochrane Library. We look forward to working with you to ensure it provides the best possible experience for our users. More information will follow as we near a launch date in early 2017.

Any questions please contact Deborah Pentesco-Gilbert (dpentesc@wiley.com), Editorial Director, Wiley, or Harriet MacLehose (hmaclehose@cochrane.org), Senior Editor, Cochrane.

The Agenda and Open Access papers for the Cochrane Steering Group meeting in Seoul are now available.

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

CEU Report on Review Quality

Governance Restructure Papers

Knowledge Translation Strategy Update

Membership Update

Spokesperson Policy

Structure and Function Papers

Targeted Updates Project Report

Update on Partnerships

The IKMD team is pleased to announce an update to Archie effective 4 October 2016.

The update includes several new features; most noticeable to contributors will be the Archie log-in page, which is now Cochrane-branded. This change reflects that Archie is one of several systems to which your account provides access.

Other changes relate to new Cochrane Library developments, as well as a number of minor improvements and bug fixes. For a full breakdown of the new features and 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.

‘It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.’ World famous philosopher (and sometime baseball player) Yogi Berra got it spot on. We’re all constantly making judgements – large and small – about the future based on our knowledge, experience, values, and intellectual analysis, but also our ‘gut instincts’ and feelings, when we can’t know whether they will be successful, irrelevant or a failure. So it’s always pleasing when you seem to be getting something right that was very far from a ‘sure thing’ when you first decided to set your course – especially if the stakes are high.

This is why the news that Cochrane has received a grant of USD $1.15 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the ongoing technological development of our ‘next generation evidence system’ is worthy of special celebration. Three years ago Cochrane’s Steering Group (CSG) agreed to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in a multi-year Linked Data project to explore new ways that the data underpinning Cochrane evidence could be tagged, connected, and used in future to unleash much more of its value and help produce dynamic new forms of evidence. There was no guarantee of a successful outcome for Cochrane; we might be wasting our money. As if to stress the potentially fictional, starry-eyed nature of the initiative, its concept stage had been called the ‘Star Trek’ project!

A year later, in 2014, the CSG gave a further green light to another ambitious technology project. Project Transform won the CSG’s Game Changer strategic investment competition, an initiative established specifically to harness the innovation within Cochrane and identify an expensive project anticipated to have a transformative long-term impact on our work. Another £600,000 of Cochrane’s revenues is being invested on Project Transform’s development of a platform and processes that – amongst other things – allow us to harness technology and our worldwide network of contributors and supporters to deliver more efficient content production, information retrieval, and re-use of our data. One of the reasons we chose Transform as our game changer was because of the investments we were already making in the Linked Data project, and the way we thought these would complement and support each other.

Earlier this year the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) awarded Transform a matching grant to the money Cochrane was investing, making it a £1 million project. This latest grant provides another £880,000 to help develop new technology, ontology, structures, machine learning, and crowd engagement to change the ways data are used in the area of child health. Cochrane’s Child Health Field and Pregnancy and Childbirth and Neonatal Review Groups will be funded over the next six months to annotate all of their Reviews and help deliver the project, which we hope will prove the concept of what we have been designing and building for the last four years.

We hope there will be more grants to come that support this work, but for the next year we’ll be focused on delivering these mission-critical technology projects. We'll also be building the new partnerships we need to help us deliver our goals of making Cochrane the ‘home of evidence’ and offering new products and services that, in addition to Cochrane Reviews, will help to sustain the organization. There is no room for complacency, and we still cannot be sure that our plans and dreams will succeed in future – after all, as Yogi said, it’s hard to predict – but Linked Data and Project Transform are wonderful examples right now of the innovation, brilliant thinking, daring, and enthusiasm of our volunteers, staff, and governance that have characterized Cochrane in the past, and continue to do so in the present.

Mark Wilson, CEO
Cochrane Community
September 2016

Cochrane is delighted to announce that we have received a grant of USD $1.15 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The grant will support the development of Cochrane's next generation evidence system, with a specific focus on maternal and child health, and a number of Cochrane Groups, including the Child Health Field and the Pregnancy and Childbirth and Neonatal Review Groups, will receive direct support from project funds.

For more information, please read the full announcement on cochrane.org.

The Cochrane Editorial Unit is pleased to announce that the third funding round of the Cochrane Review Support Programme (CRSP) pilot is now open. There have been some changes to the application guidelines and form:  

1.    Applications for titles that have been funded through alternative sources will be accepted. The additional funding source(s) must be declared, along with a brief explanation of why CRSP top-up funds are required
2.    All successful reviews must be submitted for screening by the CEU prior to publication
3.    The word limit for the scientific/policy justification section has increased slightly to 350 words.

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

Key features of the programme:
•    All Cochrane Review Groups (CRGs) may apply for the awards.
•    CRGs may nominate no more than two titles – either new reviews or review updates – from the July 2016 version of the Cochrane Priority Review List. Titles added to the list after July 2016 cannot be proposed for this funding round.
•    10 grants of £5,000 each will be awarded.
•    We will aim to decide the list of successful reviews and to have notified the applicants by mid-December 2016.
•    Reviews must be published a maximum of 13 months after the awards are notified.

Cochrane recognizes 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 4 November 2016.

The Cochrane-Wikipedia partnership is pleased to announce a pilot in which volunteers will work with Cochrane Global Ageing to help improve the medical and health content of Wikipedia in this area. If you are a student in a health- or care-related discipline, and have an interest in communicating about evidence informed health care, this is a great opportunity to engage!

We will recruit three volunteers through this project. To find out more information on the project, including how to apply, please read the full story on cochrane.org.

Holger Schünemann has announced his resignation from the Cochrane Steering Group (CSG). He will focus on leading Cochrane Canada and efforts to attract long-term funding to the Cochrane Groups based in Canada. His resignation takes effect from 22 August. We’d like to thank him for his service on the CSG and his contributions to its work over the last three years.

The Methods representative seat on the new Governing Board is scheduled to be one of the four new positions to be elected by the whole Cochrane community in the last quarter of 2016, following consideration of the governance reforms by Cochrane’s AGM on 25 October in Seoul.

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