Cochrane Evidence Synthesis Unit Australia

Cochrane Australia's core team includes research and support staff with significant individual and collective track records, not only in delivering a wide range of evidence syntheses but also in pioneering new methods and types of synthesis, developing new platforms to support evidence synthesis production, and implementing novel dissemination formats. 

Our collective experience and skills are reflected in Cochrane Australia’s substantial portfolio of commissioned work that covers a variety of evidence syntheses (systematic reviews, overviews, evidence maps, clinical practice guidelines) and knowledge translation outputs (decision aids, consumer resources, podcasts, videos, infographics and media coverage).

Cochrane Australia is widely recognised as a trusted producer of evidence syntheses and advisor on synthesis methods. We have been a member of Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council's (NHMRC) Health Evidence and Methods Panel since its formation over a decade ago. Since then we have conducted (and provided methodological advice for) evidence syntheses commissioned by NHMRC, Australian Government (Dept of Health, Dept of Defence), Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, and Safer Care Victoria (see Table 1). We have also been commissioned by WHO to conduct syntheses and provide methodological input to their guidelines and serve on technical panels and editorial groups for the development of WHO guidance.

We also have significant expertise in delivering training on systematic reviews methods and GRADE to authors of reviews and providing bespoke training to a wide range of organisations. 

Cochrane Australia established ALEC in 2018 to develop living synthesis methods and collaborations (arising from our work on the Cochrane Gamechanger Project Transform). In 2020, ALEC rapidly convened Australia’s National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, bringing together 200+ contributors from 35 national peak health bodies to develop national living guidelines for COVID in Australia. 

ALEC is a collaboration of 64 national health organisations and has a range of partnerships with global organisations including WHO, NICE, Alliance for Living Evidence (ALIVE) and MAGIC. The ALEC team developed the methods for living systematic reviews (LSRs), authored the Cochrane guidance for LSRs, and oversaw their piloting and evaluation in Cochrane. Today, the ALEC team, which includes Cochrane Musculoskeletal and Cochrane Kidney and Transplant, is bringing their expertise to develop world-first living guidelines in arthritis, diabetes, kidney disease, pregnancy and postnatal care and stroke and is at the forefront of the development, application and evaluation of living evidence synthesis methods.

The Melbourne GRADE Centre provides advocacy, methodological advice and support, and training for review authors, guideline developers and health policymakers in our region. The centre connects our team to an international network of over 600 experts in the GRADE working group, enabling our active involvement in the development of GRADE guidance and integration of the most recent GRADE advances in our courses. 

MESU’s mission is to develop, evaluate and make accessible optimal statistical and research methodology for evidence synthesis. The MESU team (headed by Prof Joanne McKenzie and deputy head Dr Matthew Page) has led and contributed to major developments and understanding in evidence synthesis including developing reporting guidelines (PRISMA 2020, PRIOR, SWiM, and extensions to PRISMA 2020), risk of bias tools (ROB-ME, RoB 2), methods for synthesis when meta-analysis is not possible, methods for meta-analysing results from non-randomised studies, methods for overviews of systematic reviews, examining reproducibility in systematic reviews and bias in the review process. MESU staff regularly provide training to researchers, nationally and internationally, and collaborate on systematic reviews. MESU is funded through nationally competitive NHMRC and ARC grants.