The Centre’s remit is to help LSTM retain and develop this reputation, and to ensure LSTM staff know how to access information in best practice to guide their own work, their students’ work, and their teaching.

The Centre helped to set up Cochrane, and remains a major contributor, mainly through the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group which is an international network of over 600 authors and of 20 editors, managed by Dr Deirdre Walshe with oversight from Professor Paul Garner. In July 2014 the WHO re-designated LSTM as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Evidence Synthesis for Infectious and Tropical Diseases.

The Centre has organized workshops and seminars in carrying out a systematic review, interpreting systematic reviews, and is now expanding as part of the LSTM Staff Development Programme on how to write a paper and issues around authorship.