Who is Cochrane Switzerland?

Cochrane Switzerland is an Associate Centre of the international organisation called 'Cochrane Collaboration'. In 2010, Cochrane Switzerland was founded at the Institut universitaire de médecine sociale et préventive (IUMSP) in Lausanne. Since 2019, this institute has become part of the new Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisanté), a merger of several university and cantonal institutes in Lausanne. Since its foundation, Cochrane Switzerland has been directed by Bernard Burnand and Erik von Elm. Since mid-2018, Erik von Elm is the Director of Cochrane Switzerland.

We contribute to the work of Cochrane Public Health Europe (CPHE), the European satellite of the Review Group ‘Cochrane Public Health’. We are also active in various other Cochrane committees and working groups. More information about our ongoing activities can be found in our annual reports.

For our work, we do not accept funding from commercial or otherwise conflicted sources. This is a principle of Cochrane to be able to provide independent and reliable information and to work free from such influences.

There are two other registered Cochrane groups in Switzerland:

• Cochrane Insurance Medicine at Basel University Hospital,
• Cochrane Complementary Medicine Switzerland at the Institute for Complementary and Integrative Medicine, University of Zurich.

What is Cochrane's strategy?

The global changes and challenges have led Cochrane to develop an interim strategy that follows on from the Strategy to 2020. It is called “Strategy for Change“ and covers 2021 to 2023. Its three objectives are:

1. producing trusted evidence

2. advocating for evidence

3. informing health and care decisions