Discussion: The public sector has much to gain from partnerships with the Cochrane Collaboration and vice versa. Increasingly, departments of governments and other agencies that have responsibility for health technology assessment are embracing the systematic review techniques promulgated by the Collaboration. These are most relevant in the evaluation of the comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of new drugs and other health care interventions. Systematic reviews are being recognised as legitimate research endeavours by public research funding bodies. Because of policy imperatives, the information needs of the public sector vary, and may be different from those of individual clinicians and consumers. For instance drug regulatory authorities often wish to make an absolute judgement about benefits, harms and the quality of pharmaceutical products, whereas funding agencies are more interested in estimates of comparative performance to underpin cost-effectiveness assessments. Individual clinicians want information that maximises the benefit to harm ratio for individual patients, whereas insurers require information that enables them to target subsidies to groups of patients in whom therapy will be maximally cost-effective. While these trends offer increasing opportunities for funding there are potential risks that must be recognised by investigators. Public sector organisations have agendas, just like private organisations, and sometimes these are not transparent. A vested interest in the outcomes of studies, unrealistic deadlines created by political expectations, and tight budgets, all can make life difficult for the unwary academic.