Author proposal form for all Cochrane review types

Last updated October 2025

Review type

Please select the most appropriate type of Cochrane Review for your question:

• Intervention review: effectiveness/safety of a treatment, vaccine, device, preventative measure, procedure, or policy
• Diagnostic test accuracy review: accuracy of a test, device, or scale to aid diagnosis
• Methodology review: exploration or validation of how research is designed, conducted, reported, or used
• Overview of reviews: synthesising information from multiple systematic reviews on related research questions
• Prognosis review: describing and predicting the course of individuals with a disease or health condition
• Qualitative review: investigating perspectives and experiences of an intervention or health condition
• Other: other types of review may be considered in exceptional circumstances

Section/Category

Please select the topic (category) of the article that you would like to propose. If the article is relevant to more than one topic, please select the most relevant topic.

Additional information

Review approach

• Traditional review: standard approach without streamlining or omitting methods, or without a living systematic review approach. 
• Rapid review: streamlining or omitting specific methods. Before submitting your proposal, consult the Cochrane Rapid Review Methods Group criteria to judge the appropriateness of rapid review proposals. Describe how your review question and your author team meet the criteria for preparing a rapid review under ‘Additional comments’.
• Living systematic review: continually updating the review, with new (or newly identified) evidence incorporated as soon as it becomes available. Describe the rationale for this approach and specify resources you have available to update the review while it is in living mode under ‘Additional comments’. 

Relevance

• What question does your proposed review answer? (250 words)
• Provide a brief description of the current state of knowledge relating to the condition. Include relevant information about the intervention, test/procedure, method, prognostic factor/model you intend to review. (250 words)
• Why is this an important question? Is it especially topical at present? If so, please explain why? Summarise the importance of the question to patients, health professionals, communities or policy makers and the degree of uncertainty in the existing evidence base. (250 words)
• Has the review been funded or commissioned, and if so, by whom?

Conflict of interest policy, authorship policy and spokesperson policy

Cochrane’s conflict of interest policy places restrictions on who can and cannot be an author of Cochrane Library content, with further restrictions for first and last authors. It is the responsibility of all authors to ensure they comply with this policy and to disclose all relevant financial and non-financial interests. 

It is also the responsibility of authors to ensure they meet the criteria for authorship as set out in the authorship policy, and that anyone who meets the authorship criteria is included as an author. All authors must agree on the composition and order of the author team before submission. Please note that once an article has been submitted, authorship changes are not a solution for resolving breaches of the conflict of interest policy. For more, see Conflicts of interests and authorship: lessons from a revised policy. 

Researchers who publish work in The Cochrane Library may occasionally be approached to speak or write about it in broadcast or print media. Cochrane encourage the promotion of published content: Cochrane’s Spokesperson Policy outlines how this should be done and also links to guidance about working with the media.  

Adherence to these policies will not be checked by editorial staff as part of the proposal approval process, so it is particularly important that authors consider these policies carefully as early as possible. Failure to comply with either of these policies is likely to result in your submission being rejected.

All authors have read Cochrane’s conflict of interest policy, and authorship policy. We understand that we must comply with these policies for our work to be considered for publication on the Cochrane Library.

Health equity

Will the review address issues of health equality (targeting disadvantaged populations, reducing social gradients, etc).  If so, please explain why?

Proposed review eligibility criteria (PICO)

For an intervention review (or overviews of intervention reviews), specify the population, intervention, comparators and outcomes (PICO) for your review. Refer to the Cochrane Handbook.

• Participants/population (150 words)
  • Outline the types of populations to be included and excluded. Consider any pertinent characteristics that will be considered eligible or ineligible (e.g. demographic factors such as age and gender, the type/stage of disease/condition, medication at baseline, co-morbidities, health issues, setting).
• Intervention(s) (150 words)
  • Outline the details of the intervention you wish to investigate. Consider the dose, intensity, mode of delivery, and combinations of interventions. Are there variations you wish to exclude?
• Comparator(s) (150 words)
  • Outline the details of the comparator(s) you wish to investigate.
• Outcomes (150 words)
  • Outline the details of critical and important outcomes you wish to investigate. Where established Core Outcomes have been developed for your review question, they should be included amongst the list of outcomes unless there is good reason to do otherwise. Consult the COMET Initiative website at www.cometinitiative.org to identify whether relevant Core Outcomes have been established. Please reference any known core outcome sets.
• Study types (150 words)
  • Outline the types of studies to be included. Please describe specific features of studies which would lead to their inclusion rather than simply study labels (e.g. description of the unit of allocation where necessary).

Reviews addressing questions other than effects of interventions

For proposals relating to diagnostic test accuracy, prognosis, methodology or qualitative synthesis questions, please use the free text box below to describe the concepts that will be used as the basis for the eligibility criteria.

Context

• Will the review generate substantial public interest? If so, please explain why?
• Does this proposed review overlap with an existing Cochrane review or protocol?
  • Cochrane will only proceed with new proposals that do not overlap with existing Cochrane protocols or reviews, or where there is suitable rationale for overlap with an existing Cochrane protocol or review. Please check the Cochrane Library for overlap with published reviews and protocols.
  • If there is overlap, please provide details of these reviews/protocols including full references.
  • If there is overlap, what is the justification for your proposed review?

Available evidence

• Evidence available: Is there RCT evidence available in this area? If not, please provide information about the types of studies available.
• Size of proposed review: Do you think that more than 50 studies will be included in the review?
• If yes, what is the justification for one large review, rather than splitting the topic into several smaller reviews?
• If no, do you think the review will be “empty” (that is, no included studies)?
• Are you aware of any ongoing studies in the field? How many would you expect to complete in the next 24 months?

Expertise in the author team

• Information Specialist expertise

Cochrane Reviews must be prepared by at least two people, and often require more than two authors. A team should have a range of skills and experience including clinical topic expertise and methodological knowledge. See Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (sections II.2.1 and II.2.2)

Some Cochrane groups are able to provide specific support; for example, with searching medical databases. However, many author teams work independently. To help us assess what support you might need to develop your review, please answer the following question:

• Do you have access to an Information Specialist who will assist you with developing and running literature searches of medical databases?