Cochrane Collaboration - History

History

The Cochrane Collaboration was founded in 1993 under the leadership of Iain Chalmers. It was developed in response to Archie Cochrane's call for up-to-date, systematic reviews of all relevant randomized controlled trials of health care. Cochrane's suggestion that the methods used to prepare and maintain reviews of controlled trials in pregnancy and childbirth should be applied more widely was taken up by the Research and Development Programme, initiated to support the United Kingdom's National Health Service. Through the NHS R&D programme, led by the first Director of Research and Development Professor Michael Peckham, funds were provided to establish a 'Cochrane Centre', to collaborate with others, in the UK and elsewhere, to facilitate systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials across all areas of health care.

In October 1995, The Collaboration formed the Cochrane Consumer Network to incorporate patient perspectives into the review process. Shortly thereafter, new 'plain language summaries' provided users with a jargon-free synopsis of each systematic review.

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