• Top
• Objective
• Methods
• Conclusions

Objective

To re-assess the decline in output and influence and the first schism of the Cochrane Collaboration, one of 21^st century's great scientific and ideological movements.

Methods

We discovered, retrieved and watched DVD and 3D-taped interviews with three historic leaders of the Cochrane Collaboration: Lord Chalmers of Summertown, Sir Jeremy Grimshaw and Professor Kay Dickersin (after her nomination to the head of the iNIH by President Hillary Clinton). All interviewees identified three major factors in the decline in output and eventual fragmentation of groups and divisions within the Cochrane Collaboration:

a. Failure to define and implement long-term business plans and delays in ensuring consistent output from all groups and divisions. This was accentuated by a tendency to "rest on its laurels" after the award of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Medicine.

b. Failure to secure core-funding through loss of revenue generation to competitors wrongly identified as "friendly" or "supportive" to the Collaboration.

c. Delays in supporting the rise of intergalactic evidence-based practice for alternative forms of life.

Conclusions

Like all great movements, the Cochrane Collaboration carried within its constitution the seeds of its own decline. Failure to act decisively at crucial stages in its development led to the waning of its galaxy-wide scientific influence and ultimately to the chataclismatic events of the 45^th Colloquium and the formation of the breakaway Collaborations.

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