At the Cochrane Collaboration, open science has long been at the heart of our ethos. From publishing free plain language summaries in multiple languages to making study data available, we have always strived to make our evidence accessible, transparent and useful to as many people as possible.

Since 2013, we’ve made all Cochrane reviews freely available 12 months after publication and all protocols freely available immediately. Over 3 billion people worldwide have immediate access to all content through national access agreements and our free access offering to over 100 low- and middle-income countries.

We’d like to go further to ensure that everyone can benefit from access to Cochrane evidence. However, in this challenging funding environment, we still need income to keep producing and publishing the reviews that are trusted by researchers, clinicians and policymakers worldwide.

We have to balance our open access ambitions with our responsibility to run the charity sustainably. A model that made our content free, but deprived us of the income to produce or publish it in the first place, would be of little benefit to anyone. Our original ambition was to make all Cochrane reviews open by 2025 if we could identify a financially sustainable path to get there, without putting the onus on authors. However, it became clear that this would not be possible in that timescale. While full open access remains our ambition, we have to be realistic about how long this will take and are exploring ways to broaden access to our content in the meantime.

Our independence is one of our core founding principles; we do not accept donations or sponsorship from conflicted sources, such as pharmaceutical or medical device companies. That makes us unusual among medical and scientific charities, many of which rely on corporate benefactors to pay the bills. Not Cochrane. As a charity that publishes impartial assessments of many medical interventions and diagnostics produced and promoted by corporations, we have a strong conflict of interest policy to protect our content from undue influence.

We want our reviews to be accessible to as many people as possible, but we won’t compromise our principles or quality. The complexity of producing, editing and publishing systematic reviews makes Cochrane a poor fit for the current ‘gold’ open access model, where authors pay a fee to cover publishing costs. Conducting and publishing systematic reviews is neither cheap nor easy, and this vital work needs to be funded.

As we can’t make everything open access immediately, we are working with our publisher, Wiley, to broaden global access to Cochrane content while ensuring we can still produce it.

We are working together to significantly expand free public access worldwide. Fourteen countries currently have national provisions whereby government agencies sponsor free public access for everyone in the country. Visitors from those countries do not encounter paywalls and can access Cochrane Library content without logging in. Building on this, we aim to unlock content for large regions when a critical mass of countries within the region subscribe to the Cochrane Library via national provisions. We will work towards this goal collaboratively with Cochrane groups across the world, national funding agencies and Wiley.

We intend to make all review protocols open access from 2025 onwards with a CC-BY license and are exploring open access for other outputs such as editorials and plain language summaries. We will continue to invest in our open access journal, Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods, helping the global evidence synthesis community to keep up with the latest methodological developments. We may also add other open access journals to our core database of products in the future.

We are still working out the details of our long-term transition to open access, but we are confident that we will arrive at a sustainable solution that balances the needs of authors, readers and subscribers. The Cochrane Collaboration was founded 30 years ago to fill a crucial evidence gap, and we need to preserve our income and integrity to ensure we can continue to fulfil our mission in the decades to come. We hope that you will support us on this journey as we strive to produce the best health evidence and make it accessible to everyone, everywhere.

At the Cochrane Collaboration, open science has long been at the heart of our ethos. From publishing free plain language summaries in multiple languages to making study data available, we have always strived to make our evidence accessible, transparent and useful to as many people as possible.

Since 2013, we’ve made all Cochrane reviews freely available 12 months after publication and all protocols freely available immediately. Over 3 billion people worldwide have immediate access to all content through national access agreements and our free access offering to over 100 low- and middle-income countries.

We’d like to go further to ensure that everyone can benefit from access to Cochrane evidence. However, in this challenging funding environment, we still need income to keep producing and publishing the reviews that are trusted by researchers, clinicians and policymakers worldwide.

We have to balance our open access ambitions with our responsibility to run the charity sustainably. A model that made our content free, but deprived us of the income to produce or publish it in the first place, would be of little benefit to anyone. Our original ambition was to make all Cochrane reviews open by 2025 if we could identify a financially sustainable path to get there, without putting the onus on authors. However, it became clear that this would not be possible in that timescale. While full open access remains our ambition, we have to be realistic about how long this will take and are exploring ways to broaden access to our content in the meantime.

Our independence is one of our core founding principles; we do not accept donations or sponsorship from conflicted sources, such as pharmaceutical or medical device companies. That makes us unusual among medical and scientific charities, many of which rely on corporate benefactors to pay the bills. Not Cochrane. As a charity that publishes impartial assessments of many medical interventions and diagnostics produced and promoted by corporations, we have a strong conflict of interest policy to protect our content from undue influence.

We want our reviews to be accessible to as many people as possible, but we won’t compromise our principles or quality. The complexity of producing, editing and publishing systematic reviews makes Cochrane a poor fit for the current ‘gold’ open access model, where authors pay a fee to cover publishing costs. Conducting and publishing systematic reviews is neither cheap nor easy, and this vital work needs to be funded.

As we can’t make everything open access immediately, we are working with our publisher, Wiley, to broaden global access to Cochrane content while ensuring we can still produce it.

We are working together to significantly expand free public access worldwide. Fourteen countries currently have national provisions whereby government agencies sponsor free public access for everyone in the country. Visitors from those countries do not encounter paywalls and can access Cochrane Library content without logging in. Building on this, we aim to unlock content for large regions when a critical mass of countries within the region subscribe to the Cochrane Library via national provisions. We will work towards this goal collaboratively with Cochrane groups across the world, national funding agencies and Wiley.

We intend to make all review protocols open access from 2025 onwards with a CC-BY license and are exploring open access for other outputs such as editorials and plain language summaries. We will continue to invest in our open access journal, Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods, helping the global evidence synthesis community to keep up with the latest methodological developments. We may also add other open access journals to our core database of products in the future.

We are still working out the details of our long-term transition to open access, but we are confident that we will arrive at a sustainable solution that balances the needs of authors, readers and subscribers. The Cochrane Collaboration was founded 30 years ago to fill a crucial evidence gap, and we need to preserve our income and integrity to ensure we can continue to fulfil our mission in the decades to come. We hope that you will support us on this journey as we strive to produce the best health evidence and make it accessible to everyone, everywhere.

New online learning is now freely available about critical appraisal of rapid reviews as part of Cochrane’s flagship Evidence Essentials modules for the public.

Written from the perspective of a healthcare consumer this new module is for anyone interested in the critical appraisal of rapid systematic reviews or any review.

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• Outline when and why a rapid review may be conducted
• Describe the differences between rapid and systematic reviews
• Understand and apply key concepts for assessing the quality of a rapid review by using the CASP tool

The learning is interactive, with quizzes, animations, and ways to check your knowledge.

This module is the latest in Cochrane’s “Evidence Essentials” that gives an introduction to Evidence Based Medicine, clinical trials, systematic reviews and how to use evidence when making decisions about your health. The modules have been visited over 97,000 times since their launch, and the first 4 modules have now been translated into Spanish, German, and Russian.

The module’s content creation has been led by Emily Clark, National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools at the McMaster University, School of Nursing. Emily welcomed the launch of the new module:

“I’m so excited to see the launch of the module. It builds on the work that we have been doing at McMaster to spread understanding of critical appraisal of rapid reviews amongst the wider public. We’ve used a rapid review about risk factors associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes in children 5 years and under as the basis for this learning, and we show people how to use the CASP framework to appraise a review. This new Evidence Essential model should give non-scientists a way to check the quality of a review.”

Richard Morley, Cochrane’s Consumer Engagement Officer, said:

“The Evidence Essentials puts into one exciting place information that consumers (patients, carers and the public) can use to understand about health research, and in the case of this latest module, assess the quality of a review before using it to make decisions about healthcare choices. In a world where information and misinformation are abundant, the ability to judge the evidence is vital for the public.”

There are now six interactive modules in Evidence Essentials: an introduction to Evidence-Based Medicine, Randomized Controlled Trials, Introduction to systematic reviews, Understanding and using systematic reviews; Consumer involvement in Cochrane and the latest, Critical appraisal of rapid reviews.

Modules are free to use, with a Cochrane account and are found at https://training.cochrane.org/essentials

New online learning is now freely available about critical appraisal of rapid reviews as part of Cochrane’s flagship Evidence Essentials modules for the public.

Written from the perspective of a healthcare consumer this new module is for anyone interested in the critical appraisal of rapid systematic reviews or any review.

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• Outline when and why a rapid review may be conducted
• Describe the differences between rapid and systematic reviews
• Understand and apply key concepts for assessing the quality of a rapid review by using the CASP tool

The learning is interactive, with quizzes, animations, and ways to check your knowledge.

This module is the latest in Cochrane’s “Evidence Essentials” that gives an introduction to Evidence Based Medicine, clinical trials, systematic reviews and how to use evidence when making decisions about your health. The modules have been visited over 97,000 times since their launch, and the first 4 modules have now been translated into Spanish, German, and Russian.

The module’s content creation has been led by Emily Clark, National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools at the McMaster University, School of Nursing. Emily welcomed the launch of the new module:

“I’m so excited to see the launch of the module. It builds on the work that we have been doing at McMaster to spread understanding of critical appraisal of rapid reviews amongst the wider public. We’ve used a rapid review about risk factors associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes in children 5 years and under as the basis for this learning, and we show people how to use the CASP framework to appraise a review. This new Evidence Essential model should give non-scientists a way to check the quality of a review.”

Richard Morley, Cochrane’s Consumer Engagement Officer, said:

“The Evidence Essentials puts into one exciting place information that consumers (patients, carers and the public) can use to understand about health research, and in the case of this latest module, assess the quality of a review before using it to make decisions about healthcare choices. In a world where information and misinformation are abundant, the ability to judge the evidence is vital for the public.”

There are now six interactive modules in Evidence Essentials: an introduction to Evidence-Based Medicine, Randomized Controlled Trials, Introduction to systematic reviews, Understanding and using systematic reviews; Consumer involvement in Cochrane and the latest, Critical appraisal of rapid reviews.

Modules are free to use, with a Cochrane account and are found at https://training.cochrane.org/essentials

The question of whether and how to treat preterm infants with postnatal corticosteroids for the management of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, which is a chronic lung problem due to prematurity, has been a neonatologist's quandary for decades. In August 2023, Cochrane Neonatal published a network meta-analysis on the use of postnatal corticosteroids for its prevention. In this podcast, Roger Soll of Cochrane Neonatal, talks with the lead author Susanne Hay, an attending neonatologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the US, about her team's work.

A new Cochrane review has found that taking zinc may help to reduce the duration of common cold symptoms by about two days, but the evidence is not conclusive and potential benefits must be balanced against side-effects. 

Since the 1980s, zinc products have been marketed as treatments for the common cold and are particularly popular in the USA. Zinc is an essential mineral naturally found in many foods and plays a role in immune function. Most people in high-income countries get enough zinc through their diets, although aging and some chronic diseases may lead to deficiency. 

The theory behind zinc-based lozenges, sprays and syrups is that the zinc may interfere with viral replication when it comes into contact with viral particles in the nose, mouth and throat. Zinc has been shown to interfere with viral replication in petri dishes and mice, although this alone doesn't tell us whether something will work in real people. 

To test if zinc is useful in preventing or treating a cold, a team of researchers looked at 19 human trials examining zinc as a treatment and 15 as a preventative measure. They identified a lot of variation between the studies in how zinc was administered, how much was given, how they defined a ‘cold’ and what they measured. 

Eight studies with 972 participants investigated zinc as a treatment to reduce cold duration. Combining the results of these studies yielded low-certainty evidence that it may help to reduce duration by around two days, down from an average week-long duration in the groups who received placebo.  

The review found no strong evidence to conclude that zinc treatment impacts the severity of cold symptoms. The prevention studies showed no clear evidence of benefit from taking zinc before the onset of a cold; those taking zinc preventatively had similar outcomes to those who didn’t. 

Common side-effects of zinc reported in the trials included bowel problems, nausea and unpleasant taste. There was no clear evidence of more serious side-effects directly resultant from zinc. 

“People considering zinc to treat a cold should be aware of the limited evidence base and possible side-effects,” says Assistant Professor Daryl Nault of Maryland University of Integrative Health, first author of the review. “Ultimately, it’s up to the individual to decide whether the risk of potential unpleasant side-effects is worth the benefit of potentially shortening their illness by a few days. The best advice remains to consult your physician if you’re feeling unwell and inform them if you use any supplements. While there have been many trials investigating zinc, the approaches vary, so it is difficult to draw conclusions with certainty.” 

The trials included in the review varied in many ways including the type of zinc, the dose of zinc given, whether it was given as a lozenge or nasal spray, and how the outcomes were reported and measured. Some trials measured for a fixed time window and asked participants if they still had a cold at the end. Others measured the time between symptoms starting and resolving, although this was defined slightly differently by each study. Few studies monitored the status of individual symptoms, such as sore throat, cough or fever, so there was insufficient evidence to draw any reliable conclusions about specific symptoms. 

“The evidence on zinc is far from settled: we need more research before we can be confident in its effects,” says Assistant Professor Susan Wieland of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, senior author of the review. “Future studies should adopt standardized methods for administering and reporting treatments and defining and reporting outcomes. Additional studies focusing on the most promising types and doses of zinc products and using appropriate statistical methods to assess outcomes that are important to patients will enable us to understand whether zinc may have a place in treatment of the common cold.” 

• Read the full Cochrane review and plain language summary in the Cochrane Library 
• Listen to the podcast

A new Cochrane review has found that taking zinc may help to reduce the duration of common cold symptoms by about two days, but the evidence is not conclusive and potential benefits must be balanced against side-effects. 

Since the 1980s, zinc products have been marketed as treatments for the common cold and are particularly popular in the USA. Zinc is an essential mineral naturally found in many foods and plays a role in immune function. Most people in high-income countries get enough zinc through their diets, although aging and some chronic diseases may lead to deficiency. 

The theory behind zinc-based lozenges, sprays and syrups is that the zinc may interfere with viral replication when it comes into contact with viral particles in the nose, mouth and throat. Zinc has been shown to interfere with viral replication in petri dishes and mice, although this alone doesn't tell us whether something will work in real people. 

To test if zinc is useful in preventing or treating a cold, a team of researchers looked at 19 human trials examining zinc as a treatment and 15 as a preventative measure. They identified a lot of variation between the studies in how zinc was administered, how much was given, how they defined a ‘cold’ and what they measured. 

Eight studies with 972 participants investigated zinc as a treatment to reduce cold duration. Combining the results of these studies yielded low-certainty evidence that it may help to reduce duration by around two days, down from an average week-long duration in the groups who received placebo.  

The review found no strong evidence to conclude that zinc treatment impacts the severity of cold symptoms. The prevention studies showed no clear evidence of benefit from taking zinc before the onset of a cold; those taking zinc preventatively had similar outcomes to those who didn’t. 

Common side-effects of zinc reported in the trials included bowel problems, nausea and unpleasant taste. There was no clear evidence of more serious side-effects directly resultant from zinc. 

“People considering zinc to treat a cold should be aware of the limited evidence base and possible side-effects,” says Assistant Professor Daryl Nault of Maryland University of Integrative Health, first author of the review. “Ultimately, it’s up to the individual to decide whether the risk of potential unpleasant side-effects is worth the benefit of potentially shortening their illness by a few days. The best advice remains to consult your physician if you’re feeling unwell and inform them if you use any supplements. While there have been many trials investigating zinc, the approaches vary, so it is difficult to draw conclusions with certainty.” 

The trials included in the review varied in many ways including the type of zinc, the dose of zinc given, whether it was given as a lozenge or nasal spray, and how the outcomes were reported and measured. Some trials measured for a fixed time window and asked participants if they still had a cold at the end. Others measured the time between symptoms starting and resolving, although this was defined slightly differently by each study. Few studies monitored the status of individual symptoms, such as sore throat, cough or fever, so there was insufficient evidence to draw any reliable conclusions about specific symptoms. 

“The evidence on zinc is far from settled: we need more research before we can be confident in its effects,” says Assistant Professor Susan Wieland of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, senior author of the review. “Future studies should adopt standardized methods for administering and reporting treatments and defining and reporting outcomes. Additional studies focusing on the most promising types and doses of zinc products and using appropriate statistical methods to assess outcomes that are important to patients will enable us to understand whether zinc may have a place in treatment of the common cold.” 

• Read the full Cochrane review and plain language summary in the Cochrane Library 
• Listen to the podcast

Specifications: Permanent – Full Time (1.0 FTE.)
Salary:   circa £35,000 per Annum
Location: (Remote – Flexible) Ideally based in the UK, Germany or Denmark. Candidates anywhere from the world will be considered; however, Cochrane’s Central Executive Team is only able to offer consultancy contracts outside these countries for 1-Year.
Closing date: 21 April 2024

Cochrane is an international charity. For 30 years we have responded to the challenge of making vast amounts of research evidence useful for informing decisions about health. We do this by synthesising research findings and our work has been recognised as the international gold standard for high quality, trusted information.

Cochrane's strength is in its collaborative, global community. We have 110,000+ members and supporters around the world. Though we are spread out across the globe, our shared passion for health evidence unites us. Our Central Executive Team supports this work and is divided into four directorates: Evidence Production and Methods, Publishing and Technology, Development, and Finance and Corporate Services.

To help maintain and evolve Cochrane’s cloud hosting and application deployment infrastructure, ensure applications’ dependencies are kept current (both independently and in collaboration with development teams), and promote operational awareness across the infrastructure. This role works across development and operations (DevOps).

Don’t have every single qualification? We know that some people are less likely to apply for a job unless they are a perfect match. At Cochrane, we’re not looking for “perfect matches.” We’re looking to welcome people to our diverse, inclusive, and passionate workplace. So, if you’re excited about this role but don’t have every single qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway. Whether it’s this role or another one, you may be just the right candidate.

Our organization is built on four core values: Collaboration: Underpins everything we do, locally and globally. Relevant: The right evidence at the right time in the right format. Integrity: Independent and transparent. Quality: Reviewing and improving what we do, maintaining rigour and trust.

You can expect:

• An opportunity to truly impact health globally.
• A flexible work environment
• A comprehensive onboarding experiences.
• An environment where people feel welcome, heard, and included, regardless of their differences.

Cochrane welcomes applications from a wide range of perspectives, experiences, locations, and backgrounds; diversity, equity and inclusion are key to our values.

How to apply

• For further information on the role and how to apply
• The deadline to receive your application is 21 April 2024.
• The supporting statement should indicate why you are applying for the post, and how far you meet the requirements, using specific examples.
• Read our Recruitment Privacy Statement

Specifications: Permanent – Full Time (1.0 FTE.)
Salary:   circa £35,000 per Annum
Location: (Remote – Flexible) Ideally based in the UK, Germany or Denmark. Candidates anywhere from the world will be considered; however, Cochrane’s Central Executive Team is only able to offer consultancy contracts outside these countries for 1-Year.
Closing date: 21 April 2024

Cochrane is an international charity. For 30 years we have responded to the challenge of making vast amounts of research evidence useful for informing decisions about health. We do this by synthesising research findings and our work has been recognised as the international gold standard for high quality, trusted information.

Cochrane's strength is in its collaborative, global community. We have 110,000+ members and supporters around the world. Though we are spread out across the globe, our shared passion for health evidence unites us. Our Central Executive Team supports this work and is divided into four directorates: Evidence Production and Methods, Publishing and Technology, Development, and Finance and Corporate Services.

To help maintain and evolve Cochrane’s cloud hosting and application deployment infrastructure, ensure applications’ dependencies are kept current (both independently and in collaboration with development teams), and promote operational awareness across the infrastructure. This role works across development and operations (DevOps).

Don’t have every single qualification? We know that some people are less likely to apply for a job unless they are a perfect match. At Cochrane, we’re not looking for “perfect matches.” We’re looking to welcome people to our diverse, inclusive, and passionate workplace. So, if you’re excited about this role but don’t have every single qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway. Whether it’s this role or another one, you may be just the right candidate.

Our organization is built on four core values: Collaboration: Underpins everything we do, locally and globally. Relevant: The right evidence at the right time in the right format. Integrity: Independent and transparent. Quality: Reviewing and improving what we do, maintaining rigour and trust.

You can expect:

• An opportunity to truly impact health globally.
• A flexible work environment
• A comprehensive onboarding experiences.
• An environment where people feel welcome, heard, and included, regardless of their differences.

Cochrane welcomes applications from a wide range of perspectives, experiences, locations, and backgrounds; diversity, equity and inclusion are key to our values.

How to apply

• For further information on the role and how to apply
• The deadline to receive your application is 21 April 2024.
• The supporting statement should indicate why you are applying for the post, and how far you meet the requirements, using specific examples.
• Read our Recruitment Privacy Statement

We are thrilled to announce the publication of a new editorial titled "Unlocking the Power of Global Collaboration: Building a Stronger Evidence Ecosystem Together," authored by Prof Zoe Jordan of JBI, Dr Vivian Welch of The Campbell Collaboration, and Dr Karla Soares-Weiser of Cochrane. This editorial is now available simultaneously in JBI Evidence Synthesis, Campbell Systematic Reviews, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. It underscores the urgent need for collaborative efforts to harness the potential of evidence synthesis on a global scale. This collaborative endeavour reflects the shared commitment of the three organisations to foster cooperation, aiming to enhance both health outcomes and policy efficacy worldwide.

The editorial highlights the pivotal role of collaboration in addressing contemporary global challenges, emphasizing the collective commitment of JBI, The Campbell Collaboration, and Cochrane to foster cooperation for enhanced health outcomes and policy efficacy worldwide. Dr. Karla Soares-Weiser said: "This co-publication marks a significant milestone for all three of our organizations and reaffirms our dedication to collaboration. Our respective communities are profoundly collaborative and communicative within their domains, and we'd now like to catalyze further collaboration between and across them. We're particularly excited about the upcoming Global Evidence Summit, where leaders in evidence synthesis and evidence-based practice, including Cochrane, JBI, Guidelines International Network (GIN), and The Campbell Collaboration, will convene to share best practice and promote cross-disciplinary working."

Scheduled for September 2024, the Global Evidence Summit represents a unique opportunity for professionals across various sectors to engage in discussions about evidence production, summarization, and dissemination, informing policy and practice. Dr. Soares-Weiser emphasized the importance of this event: "The GES serves as a platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration, crucial for addressing global challenges in health, education, social justice, and the environment." As the editorial advocates for a shift towards enhanced collaboration, the Global Evidence Summit sets the stage for meaningful dialogue and action.

• Learn more about the Global Evidence Summit
• Read the editorial

Jordan Z, Welch V, Soares-Weiser K. Unlocking the power of global collaboration: building a stronger evidence ecosystem together. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2024, Issue 4. Art. No.: ED000166. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.ED000166.

We are thrilled to announce the publication of a new editorial titled "Unlocking the Power of Global Collaboration: Building a Stronger Evidence Ecosystem Together," authored by Prof Zoe Jordan of JBI, Dr Vivian Welch of The Campbell Collaboration, and Dr Karla Soares-Weiser of Cochrane. This editorial is now available simultaneously in JBI Evidence Synthesis, Campbell Systematic Reviews, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. It underscores the urgent need for collaborative efforts to harness the potential of evidence synthesis on a global scale. This collaborative endeavour reflects the shared commitment of the three organisations to foster cooperation, aiming to enhance both health outcomes and policy efficacy worldwide.

The editorial highlights the pivotal role of collaboration in addressing contemporary global challenges, emphasizing the collective commitment of JBI, The Campbell Collaboration, and Cochrane to foster cooperation for enhanced health outcomes and policy efficacy worldwide. Dr. Karla Soares-Weiser said: "This co-publication marks a significant milestone for all three of our organizations and reaffirms our dedication to collaboration. Our respective communities are profoundly collaborative and communicative within their domains, and we'd now like to catalyze further collaboration between and across them. We're particularly excited about the upcoming Global Evidence Summit, where leaders in evidence synthesis and evidence-based practice, including Cochrane, JBI, Guidelines International Network (GIN), and The Campbell Collaboration, will convene to share best practice and promote cross-disciplinary working."

Scheduled for September 2024, the Global Evidence Summit represents a unique opportunity for professionals across various sectors to engage in discussions about evidence production, summarization, and dissemination, informing policy and practice. Dr. Soares-Weiser emphasized the importance of this event: "The GES serves as a platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration, crucial for addressing global challenges in health, education, social justice, and the environment." As the editorial advocates for a shift towards enhanced collaboration, the Global Evidence Summit sets the stage for meaningful dialogue and action.

• Learn more about the Global Evidence Summit
• Read the editorial

Jordan Z, Welch V, Soares-Weiser K. Unlocking the power of global collaboration: building a stronger evidence ecosystem together. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2024, Issue 4. Art. No.: ED000166. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.ED000166.

Two of the Cochrane Reviews that investigate different ways to deliver health and social care services look at the qualitative and quantitative research into a strategy called hospital at home. In this podcast, Roses Parker, Cochrane’s Commissioning Editor talks with lead author of the March 2024 qualitative evidence synthesis of implementing hospital at home, Jason Wallis, a physiotherapist and researcher at Monash University in Australia, and Sasha Shepperd, researcher at Oxford Population Health, University of Oxford in the UK who led the Cochrane review of the quantitative effects of admission avoidance hospital at home, which was updated in March 2024.

Immunisation is a key component in the prevention of illness and the Cochrane review of interventions to improve coverage of childhood immunisation in low- and middle-income countries was updated for the second time in December 2023. We asked lead author, Angela Oyo-Ita from University of Calabar Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, to tell us about the latest findings in this podcast.

Among the Cochrane Reviews of treatments to help patients with kidney stones, our review comparing shock wave treatment with surgery was updated for the second time in August 2023. Here's lead author, Vasun Setthawong from Rangsit University in Bangkok, Thailand to tell us about the latest findings.