The Cochrane Collaboration is a not-for-profit independent organisation dedicated to making up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of healthcare interventions readily available worldwide. It produces and disseminates systematic reviews of healthcare interventions in over fifty topic areas and makes them available as The Cochrane Library.
COCHRANE IRELAND: http://ireland.cochrane.org/
In 2002, Ireland became the first country to provide free national access to the Cochrane Library, an initiative co-funded by HSC R&D Division in Northern Ireland and the Health Research Board (HRB) in Ireland.
HSC R&D Division in collaboration with HRB intend jointly to develop Cochrane Ireland as a permanent resource for researchers and users of research evidence on the island of Ireland.
The role of Cochrane Ireland is:
- To promote The Cochrane Collaboration in Ireland
- To serve as a source of information about The Cochrane Collaboration and its outputs
- To highlight and maintain awareness of the benefits of systematic review methodologies and skills among stakeholders across the island of Ireland
- To highlight and maintain awareness of the usefulness of robust evidence provided by the reviews, among health and social care practitioners and policy-makers across the island of Ireland
- To co-ordinate and provide access to information on Cochrane activities on the island of Ireland
- To ensure effective communication between the UK Cochrane Centre (UKCC) and the island of Ireland
- To build upon excellent Cochrane engagement by ensuring participation of the widest range of academic and professional disciplines
Stakeholders include the wider academic community, patients and the public, health professionals and those who commission and pay for health or social care. In sum, it is all on the island of Ireland who can benefit from access to the best quality evidence to underpin practice.
The first phase of funding for Cochrane Ireland (included support for Cochrane courses and Cochrane Fellowships) was completed in 2017.