Cochrane

Research review

Cochrane, a charity and international evidence-synthesis network · United Kingdom, international network

Visit the source site · Audited 2026-10-14

Who pays for it

Cochrane's 2024 audited accounts report £10.52 million total income, including £7.045 million in Wiley Library royalties, about 70% of annual turnover; Groups estimate a further £10–15 million yearly from host institutions, governments and charities outside central accounts.

Status: Supporting

Cochrane publishes transparent evidence reviews under restrictive conflict rules, but review age, author interests and publishing-income dependence still need checks. A relevant review is used as evidence synthesis, not as a stand-alone clinical directive.

How SafeMomma uses it

We check the methods, author disclosures and version date of each relevant review.

The audit

Who controls it: Cochrane is a charity and international evidence-synthesis network. Individual review authors and editorial groups produce reviews under Cochrane methods; the central charity does not write every review.
Money: Cochrane's audited 2024 accounts report £10.52 million total income and £7.045 million in Wiley Library royalties, about 70% of annual turnover. Groups estimate £10–15 million yearly from host institutions, governments and charities, not included in central accounts.
Conflict rules: The public policy bars direct commercial funding of content by an organization with a financial interest in the topic. It requires disclosures, conflict-free first and last authors, and at least two-thirds of authors to be financially conflict-free.
Method: Individual review records generally show protocols, searches, study selection, analyses, certainty assessments, funding and author disclosures. The HPV review record illustrates that review-specific information is available.
Dates on its pages: Dates and versions are review-specific; the checked HPV review's latest version was 9 May 2018, with an amendment commissioned but no new version shown by 14 October 2026.
Political exposure: Cochrane reported that NIHR and DHSC core funding for UK Review Groups would end after March 2023, and its 2024 accounts linked the loss to backlog-clearing costs. This funding change does not show that review findings changed.
Money exposure: Wiley royalties create publishing-income dependence, while Cochrane policy restricts direct commercial funding of reviews. The HPV record discloses historical author travel grants that ended in 2008 and a separate university surveillance grant, not direct funding of that review; these disclosures do not establish influence.
Track record: In 2018, Cochrane's Editor in Chief said an investigation found a small number of eligible HPV trials had been missed, but adding them made little or no difference to the main outcome. A separate governance dispute led to Peter Gøtzsche's membership termination and board resignations; the reviewed materials found no evidence that commercial pressure changed the review.

Where this comes from

Incentive exposure describes pressure from money or politics, not whether the source is right. Funding alone does not show influence.

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