Principles

Seven principles underpin COVID-END’s work:

1. supporting (not competing with or replacing) well-positioned regional, national and sub-national organizations that are working in close partnership with key target audiences and already responding to their evidence needs
2. supporting – with a common brand/identity, small agile secretariat, and simple working group structure – a distributed network of organizations and individuals to play to their comparative advantages and leverage one another’s work
3. seeking out quick wins for those supporting decision-makers and among those involved in preparing evidence syntheses, technology assessments and guidelines, and taking measured steps to longer-term solutions that can better support decision-makers
4. strengthening existing institutions (e.g., Campbell and Cochrane) and processes (e.g., protocol registration in PROSPERO) and contributing to their long-term sustainability
5. addressing a diversity of regional and linguistic needs among decision-makers and those who support them
6. ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion in the leadership of the initiative and its working groups (e.g., achieving a balance of co-chairs by gender and from high-income countries and from low- and middle-income countries)
7. committing to related principles articulated by others
   1. principles of high quality evidence synthesis as articled by Evidence Synthesis International
   2. principles of open access to of all data, methods, processes, code, software, publications, education and peer review produced through the initiative (in keeping with ‘open synthesis’ principles