In February 2020, LSTM was awarded a new World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre in Evidence Synthesis for Global Health.

The award was made to the evidence synthesis team led by Paul Garner and Paula Waugh in the Department of Clinical Sciences, who also run the FCDO-funded Research, Evidence and Development Initiative (READ-It). These Centres are important as they reflect the credibility of the team’s work with the WHO and, through a negotiated programme of work, help ensure the research done by the READ-It global team, and the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group in particular, are linked with current WHO priorities

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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 700 authors and 20 Editors, managed by Dr Deirdre Walshe with oversight from Professor Paul Garner. 

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.