In accordance with Cochrane's revised withdrawal policy, neither reviews nor protocols should be withdrawn for reasons other than serious error. See Withdrawing published Cochrane Reviews.

If editorial teams wish to indicate that a protocol will not be progressed, they should instead use the Editorial Note feature to add a statement to the review clarifying its status. For information on how to add an Editorial Note see Editorial note: editorial guidance, where you can also find standard templates for notes to describe common reasons for protocols not progressing.

In the event of serious error, reviews and protocols can be published as withdrawn. Only the Cover sheet and Published notes are published on the CDSR. See Display of published withdrawn articles.

Withdraw a published Protocol

In Archie

  1. On the General tab, change the Stage back to protocol and change the Write Phase to Editorial.

In RevMan

  1. On the RevMan Web dashboard, revert back to the last published version of the protocol.

In Archie

  1. If the version to which you have reverted was written by a different author team, you will need to manually add and remove authors from the author list to reflect the review byline at the time of publication.
  2. If the authors are not involved in any other Active Reviews or Protocols, make the author's group role ‘Inactive’. (See Group roles.)
  3. On the Advanced tab, change the Status to Withdrawn. 

In RevMan

  1. Add a statement to the ‘Published Notes’ section explaining the reason for withdrawal. See Steps to withdraw a Cochrane Review.
  2. Move any ‘What’s new’ Events from previously published versions to the History section. 
  3. Do not add a What's new’ Event. The withdrawal of a published protocol for a Cochrane Review automatically creates a new citation version. See Assigning What’s New events to Cochrane Reviews.

In Editorial Manager

  1. Initiate Proposal (published protocol is not in EM) or Solicit Commentary (published protocol is in EM) to publish as withdrawn. See Withdrawing published content.


After a Protocol has been published as Withdrawn, it is set to Inactive in Archie.

Withdraw a published Review

In Archie

  1. On the General tab, change the Write Phase to Editorial.

In RevMan

  1. On the RevMan Web dashboard, revert back to the last published version of the Review.

In Archie

  1. If the version to which you have reverted was written by a different author team, you will need to manually add and remove authors from the author list to reflect the review byline at the time of publication.
  2. If the authors are not involved in any other Active Reviews or Protocols, make the author's group role ‘Inactive’. (See Group roles.)
  3. On the Advanced tab, change the Status to Withdrawn. 

In RevMan

  1. Add a statement to the ‘Published Notes’ section explaining the reason for withdrawal. See Steps to withdraw a Cochrane Review.
  2. Move any ‘What’s new’ Events from previously published versions to the History section.
  3. Do not add a ‘What's new’ Event. The withdrawal of a published Cochrane Review automatically creates a new citation version. See Assigning What’s New events to Cochrane Reviews.

In Editorial Manager

  1. Initiate Proposal (published review is not in EM) or Solicit Commentary (published review is in EM) to publish as withdrawn. See Withdrawing published content.

After a Review has been published as Withdrawn, it is set to Inactive in Archie.