The UK Cochrane Centre was the first to be founded of fourteen regional Cochrane Centres within The Cochrane Collaboration, and has special responsibility for Cochrane entities and contributors in the UK and Ireland.
Cochrane Centres help to maintain and improve the quality and usefulness of Cochrane reviews through the provision of learning, development and support to Cochrane entities.
Just under half of the 53 Cochrane Review Groups have editorial bases in the UK, 6800 (34%) of the 20,000 authors of Cochrane reviews and nearly 28% of all participants in the Collaboration are based here. The Centre provides a vital link between The Cochrane Collaboration, the Department of Health, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), NIHR Evaluation, Trials and Studies Co-ordinating Centre (NETSCC) and many other stakeholders. It has had an important role as a knowledge broker and is developing and implementing a key programme of engagement with UK stakeholders to reflect the very substantial overall support given by the UK Government, through the NIHR, to Cochrane activities. At the same time, it seeks to develop new engagement activities that will maximise the quality and relevance of Cochrane outputs to health and social care throughout the world.
The Centre is an integral part of the NHS Research & Development programme and the National Institute for Health Research. It works closely, and collaboratively, with the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination in York. The Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust (OUH) is funded to provide the UK Cochrane Centre for the NIHR. As the OUH and The University of Oxford become more closely aligned as an Academic Health Science provider, the UK Cochrane Centre will seek still closer integration with its host institution and its partners, so that the resulting synergies will increase the quality, dissemination and utilisation of Cochrane systematic reviews worldwide.
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