The World Health Organization, governments, public health bodies, health professionals and individuals all turn to Cochrane for health information they can rely on.
Why people and institutions trust Cochrane evidence
- Researchers and health professionals widely agree that systematic reviews are the most reliable form of health evidence available. Cochrane is considered the leader in systematic reviews due to the strength and rigour of our methods.
- We do not accept commercial or conflicted funding, and we have strict sponsorship and endorsement policies. This means our researchers are free to produce trustworthy and reliable information, unaffected by commercial and financial interests.
- We have very strict editorial policies, including requirements for our authors regarding disclosure of interests and acknowledgement of technologies used.
- Leading researchers, health professionals and patients from around the world work together on Cochrane reviews, bringing diverse expertise and insights that ensure our reviews are rigorous and relevant.
- Governments across the world give their entire populations access to our reviews by funding national provision to the Cochrane Library.
- We place great emphasis on research integrity: we have a team dedicated to scrutinizing various aspects of how we produce our evidence. They work across the Cochrane community and beyond to develop new policies and help spread best practice.
- We are committed to improving and developing our work: we regularly review and update our evidence and the methods we use, to ensure our output remains accurate and relevant as knowledge, processes and technology evolve.
Our mission has never been more important. In the digital age, we have much greater access to health information, but it can be hard to know whether information is accurate and unbiased.
Read more about why Cochrane evidence is trusted
1. Our systematic reviews are considered the most reliable health evidence available
The main type of health evidence we produce is systematic reviews. Systematic reviews are widely agreed to be the most reliable and authoritative sources of evidence available.
A systematic review is a way of reviewing all the data and results from research about a particular question in a standardized, systematic way (this is sometimes called 'synthesized evidence').
The research methods used reduce bias and external factors that could influence the outcomes of the research. Systematic reviews summarize the results of multiple studies to support decisions about care, treatment and how to allocate resources.
We are considered to be the leader in systematic reviews, because of the rigorous way we produce them. Find out more about how we produce systematic reviews.
2. We do not accept commercial or conflicted funding, and we have strict sponsorship policies
We have never accepted commercial funding, sponsorship or partnerships and we will not do this in the future. This is unusual in the world of scientific and health publishing, where big pharmaceutical companies often provide funding. This means that we are free from the influence of corporate agendas. This freedom is vital to enable us to produce trustworthy and reliable information, unaffected by commercial and financial interests.
The Cochrane name and logo can only be used by third parties who support our mission, and whose aims and principles are in line with ours. We have a strict non-commercial use policy preventing the use of our name, logo, information, and evidence for any promotional or advertising purposes. We will only enter into partnerships with organisations that meet specific, exacting criteria.
The vast majority of our income comes from subscriptions to the Cochrane Library, which holds our Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Our subscribers are mainly individuals working in the medical or health sector, and academic, health and research institutions. We also generate income through custom evidence-based research projects for medical charities, associations and governments, and by selling our editorial production software to individuals and institutions.
If you share our ethos, do get in touch to discuss funding our work or partnering with us. Find out how you can donate or make a gift to support our work.
3. We have strict editorial policies
Cochrane strives to attain the highest levels of objectivity and to ensure that the users of our information and tools have confidence in the quality of our services. We put our core values of transparency and integrity into practice through key policies.
We have strict policies regarding conflict of interest and commercial sponsorship. These are based on the principles of independence, transparency, freedom from interference, and assurance that the content we publish is produced in an independent manner.
These policies are more stringent than the policies used by many scientific journals, particularly in the types of financial sponsorship and support that we forbid and our requirements for authors to disclose financial and non-financial interests.
Author teams who use artificial intelligence (AI) tools, machine learning, language models, or similar technologies must state this explicitly in their acknowledgements, specifying the tools used and the purpose for using them.
4. We work with many of the world's most highly qualified health experts - including patients
Cochrane's members and supporters come from more than 200 countries and territories.
Our research benefits from the knowledge, insights and multiple perspectives of hundreds of the world's most highly qualified, experienced medical professionals and health researchers. They commit their time and expertise, alongside dedicated patients, to research and publish rigorous, up-to-date, relevant research - for free.
Many of the world's top medical minds contribute to our research without payment because they are driven to work with other like-minded people who are passionate about improving health outcomes for everyone, everywhere.
We listen to people with lived experience of health conditions
We have a long and rich history of involving patients and the public in our work. We work with patients, their families and carers to design, produce and review our studies, because their experiences are vital to ensure that our health evidence is relevant and addresses their needs. The perspectives of patients and those close to them enrich our research and evidence, helping us to make best use of our resources.
Our longstanding focus on diversity means that we draw on many different experiences of health conditions around the world. This enables us to see the bigger picture and produce evidence that is applicable to all, regardless of location or background.
5. Governments give their populations access to our reviews
Governments in all continents of the world regard our evidence so highly that they give their entire populations access to our systematic reviews by funding national provision through the Cochrane Library.
In addition, we work with our publisher Wiley to extend free access to more than 100 low- and middle-income countries, areas and territories. Find out about access to Cochrane reviews in your country.
Through these initiatives, more than 3 billion people have free access to the Cochrane Library.
6. We place great emphasis on research integrity
We are committed to independence, transparency, and integrity in healthcare research. We have a team that is specifically dedicated to supporting our research integrity. They undertake their own research to scrutinize the integrity of various research processes and behaviours, working alongside our authors and other groups to develop policies.
Our research integrity team also work with communities and institutions beyond Cochrane to help spread best practice in research integrity. If you would like to suggest new areas for the research integrity team to consider, please get in touch.
7. We are committed to improving and developing our work
We are committed to regular reviews of every piece of our evidence. We assess whether findings are still relevant, and we identify aspects to investigate further or update. We believe this is critical to ensure the ongoing reliability and trust in our work as medicine progresses.
We are actively reviewing and developing our review production process to make it simpler for researchers to follow. We are working on our publication formats to make it easier and quicker for health professionals to digest and apply our findings in clinics and hospitals around the world.
Our improvements don't stop at publication - we are deeply involved in work with the wider health community to ensure that high-quality health evidence reaches those who need it, and is implemented in a consistent way.
"Cochrane reviews are brilliant"
"I always turn to Cochrane reviews, they are an invaluable resource for finding the scientific consensus on our current understanding of diseases and how best to treat them. In today’s world of misinformation and alternative facts it seems harder than ever to distil out what research is there on a topic and how well it was performed. Cochrane reviews are brilliant. They do this for you and then state, in a clear easy-to-read way, what we know and how sure we are."
Dr Jack Rivers-Auty, Biologist and researcher in inflammation, UK
"The rigour and quality of the evidence has me turning to them as a trusted source"
"The rigour and quality of the evidence supplied by Cochrane for my research and policy work has me turning to them as a trusted source for much of the work I currently do and have done throughout my career. Were it not for Cochrane reviews, precious government resources would be spent doing the legwork on these reviews instead of acting on the evidence for vital policy and programming decisions."
Stephanie Hylmar, Health Quality Ontario, Provincial Government of Canada
"What I needed to escape the confusion"
"Luckily I knew about Cochrane. I knew that their systematic reviews would be reliable, free from vested interest, and regularly updated. That was what I needed to escape the confusion, the anecdotes, and the emotion."
Karen Morley, who used Cochrane evidence in a discussion with her GP about treatment for a condition
"Rigorous, trustworthy and balanced reviews"
"Cochrane delivered rigorous, trustworthy and balanced reviews of scientific papers communicated with clarity and directness. Such reviews enabled policy makers, journalists and the public to discuss and make decisions based on the best evidence."
Judging panel of the University of Cambridge's first Harding Prize for Useful and Trustworthy Communication. Cochrane was joint winner, for a COVID-19 treatment review
Our evidence
Find out about our systematic reviews and our plain language summaries.
Our impact
Read and watch videos about the impact of our evidence around the world.
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