News from Cochrane

Caroline Struthers said:
So Cochrane Norway have to go to where there's money and University of Western Norway has offered it...in exchange for the "kudos" that Cochrane brings??!! They must be aware of the kerfuffle over the Exercise review...or maybe they aren't. Claire Glenton is the only person moving from NIPH to the new host.
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I'm filling in gaps here which may not be valid but - the 'Norwegian Sattelite of the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Review Group' has closed because of the withdrawal of NIHR funding, see: https://epoc.cochrane.org/node/176 and out of date page https://www.cochrane.no/related-cochrane-entities-0 so there may have been a double hit if there was Norad funding re: vaccines that has also been cut.

I'm not sure there is actual funding at the new location other than sinecure for Cochrane insider Grenton, plus a stated co-operation with Simon Lewin - translation of the Høgskulen på Vestlandet press release =

"The amount of research published every day is enormous and we will promote the importance of summarizing qualitative research as well as quantitative research. In addition to issues within health, we will pay particular attention to social work issues that are relevant to the welfare services, she said.

In addition to geographical units in many countries, Cochrane also consists of a number of thematic groups. The group "Cochrane People, Health Systems and Public Health", is led by Simon Lewin at NTNU, and will be an important collaboration partner for HVL in this work.

Strong knowledge environment at HVL

Titlestad emphasized that HVL has a strong knowledge environment within knowledge summaries and a unique master's program in knowledge-based practice that cannot be found elsewhere in the country. The master's program has also been noticed outside Norway's borders."

It would be interesting to know exactly what the Norad grant to Cochrane Norway consisted of - I'm afraid my capacity to navigate the Norad site or put in a request for info is not sufficient.
 
inox said:
The new home is HVL, and this is an probably a good choice as they have a uniqe master program for ‘knowledge based practices’, and have a focus on science/knowledge summaries in their profile.
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Yes I think that Cochrane will fit the image HVL is working to build, and as a university they might further this program so that there are more subjects for doctorate candiates as well. They had a nice course on how to build complex interventions last term.
 
Reading both the HVLand the Lewin blurbs, with reference to qualitative research and thematic groups it looks to me that at least this part of Cochrane is no longer even pretending to provide rigorous analysis of reliable evidence. The focus is on satisfying social politics issues.

I cannot see healthcare systems wanting to buy this in, since anyone and everyone is already doing this for free and publishing in any old journal.

Maybe branches of healthcare systems like psychiatry or primary care will want to make use of 'summaries of qualitative research' but I would hope that organisations like NICE would not want to be involved.
 
inox said:
It’s a situation of you scratch my back, i’ll scratch yours still, as it’s surely a big deal to HVL and makes their position stronger.
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Yea seems to align with Jonathan - beggars can't be choosers --- I do wonder if Cochrane is a liability though. If I were asked, I say no to "hosting" them i.e. even it didn't cost the institution anything.
In the UK there seems to be a tradition of "independent think tanks" - e.g. I use material from the Institute for Government. I generally find the material they provide reliable/useful --- Cochrane doesn't fit that description!
 
Jonathan - "I cannot see healthcare systems wanting to buy this in, since anyone and everyone is already doing this for free and publishing in any old journal."

Possibly may not work politically either -
If a politician wants to play to prejudices then they can get their (political) spin doctor to come up with the fancy words ---. The political cycle is short (4/5 years between elections) --- you don't have time to fund dodgy reviews to come up with the results you'd like --- you need statements, headlines, announcements--.

Oh & there's always NIHR to do research to support some dodgy Government policy - duplication?
 
Jonathan -
"I wonder if Flottorp's vociferous support for Sharpe et al and co-authoring of wingeing papers reflected a realisation that her position was under threat."
I wonder if the University were "concerned" re Flottorp [damaging the brand, controversial ---] and well --- the funding review provided an opportunity to get rid of her?
 
When I think about it this is also "News from Cochrane" :laugh:

On the new thematic group at NTNU: https://futurecochrane.org/newnews/...d-public-health-an-interview-with-simon-lewin

A hybrid seminar was held in Trondheim at the launch of this new group and I've been told slides and video will be made available at some point. Karla Soares Weiser attended and among other things said that one of the difficulties with outdated reviews were that the original question the review had asked may not be relevant anymore, and so a review could not necessarily just be "updated" instead a whole new review had to be done. Going from memory now but that was how I interpreted it at least. Sounds similar to what have been said about the CBT and GET reviews I think.
 
Midnattsol said:
I'm not sure what høyskoler are called in English, they are institutions of higher education, but are supposedly more practical rather than "academic". Though the difference between a bachelor at a høyskole and a university can be as little as the inclusion of ex.phil. at the universities. Anyway, many høyskoler in Norway have become or want to become universities. They are still established institutions.
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For what it's worth, here are a couple of wiki pages about university college (högskola in Swedish) :

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/högskola
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Sweden

But I don't know if høyskoler and högskolor are the same thing.
 
Midnattsol said:
When I think about it this is also "News from Cochrane" :laugh:

On the new thematic group at NTNU: https://futurecochrane.org/newnews/...d-public-health-an-interview-with-simon-lewin

A hybrid seminar was held in Trondheim at the launch of this new group and I've been told slides and video will be made available at some point. Karla Soares Weiser attended and among other things said that one of the difficulties with outdated reviews were that the original question the review had asked may not be relevant anymore, and so a review could not necessarily just be "updated" instead a whole new review had to be done. Going from memory now but that was how I interpreted it at least. Sounds similar to what have been said about the CBT and GET reviews I think.
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I had a quick look to see if I could find a recording, sadly I couldn't. What I did find though was a session from the recent "Cochrane London" event entitled "Building trust through co creation: re-imagining evidence".
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mango said:
For what it's worth, here are a couple of wiki pages about university college (högskola in Swedish) :

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/högskola
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Sweden

But I don't know if høyskoler and högskolor are the same thing.
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Literal translation for both into English is "high school" which has a somewhat different meaning in the UK to the Scandanavian usage where it seems specific to tertiary level education, in the UK the term is specific for schools for students aged 11 - 16/18 only, however "high school" is not a standardised classification (except in Scotland ?) and it appears only irregularly in the names of individual secondary schools.

As @NelliePledge posted upthread, the near UK equivalent for both høyskoler and högskolor fell under the term Polytechnic but these were all rebranded as Universities two+ decades ago. We do have some hybrid institutions called Universty Technical Colleges but these serve only a small proportion of total student numbers.
 
Andy said:
I had a quick look to see if I could find a recording, sadly I couldn't. What I did find though was a session from the recent "Cochrane London" event entitled "Building trust through co creation: re-imagining evidence".
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Don't really know what else to search for, but I did a quick search for co-creation and, well:
so in conclusion uh the findings
59:09
are very similar to what you have already heard um so working with communities from the outset is absolute
59:15
key so that we can build and establish trusting relationships this in turn allows for co-creating evidence and
59:22
outputs which are trustworthy uh while these methods have not necessarily directly been used in an Evidence
59:28
synthesis context they are quite uh trans easily transferable and can be replicated
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So if the topic is building trust through co-creation, and they haven't done any co-creation... I guess it's all just stuff that sounds good but that's as far as they're willing to take it. It looks good! Well, it would be good, and they're thinking about it.

For sure I do not trust Cochrane one bit.
 
There seem to be some recent ongoing changes at Cochrane, notified on its webpage.

1. From today, 6th Nov, there are changes to Cochrane's privacy policy.

New Cochrane Privacy Policy
Cochrane has updated its privacy policy. The updated version of the privacy policy can be viewed here. The main changes are to provide clearer information on how Cochrane shares and makes international transfers of personal data. The changes take effect from November 6, 2023. By using the Cochrane website from this date, you accept the updated privacy policy





The web page emphasises Cochrane's involvement with consumers.


2."Consumer involvement in practice
  • Consumers involved in the governance of Cochrane - Two consumers sit on Cochrane’s Council and are also represented on a range of Cochrane groups including the Editorial Board.
  • Members of the author team - Lived experience of the healthcare condition, as a patient or carer, can make a substantial contribution to the research question, research design, interpretation of data, and dissemination and knowledge translation of findings.
  • Members of advisory groups - Advisory groups provide oversight and input throughout the whole review process. The authors can turn to them for advice or input when specific issues arise during the review process.
  • The Covid 19 consumer rapid response group - A global volunteer group with a range of lived experience, including people who have recovered from COVID-19 and those who have been care-givers.
  • Consumers as peer reviewers - Consumer peer review involves giving feedback on Cochrane protocols and reviews before they are published to ensure they are relevant and accessible. This ensures better outcomes for patients."


3. There also seem to have been recent changes to the structure of the Cochrane Council and other details
https://community.cochrane.org/newsweek/changes-cochrane-council
 
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