Background: One of the main problems encountered by people living in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC) who want to conduct a Cochrane systematic review (SR) is the lack of protected time. At a rough estimate, less than 10% of the Cochrane reviews are authored by people from a developing country. Objectives: To: 1.-conduct a survey to gather general information about the economic assistance offered by Cochrane entities to review authors. 2.-assess the impact of economic assistance on the number of published SRs. 3.-establish the scope and relevance of the healthcare topics addressed by these reviews. Method: Contact details of all Cochrane entities listed in the Web page of the Cochrane Collaboration (http://www.cochrane.org/contact/ entities.htm), were extracted into a worksheet in February 2010. Based on this information, an e-mail to invite the contact person of each Cochrane entity to participate in a survey about the economic support provided to review authors was sent in March 2010 (maximum three attempts). A short survey was developed to collect the following relevant data: provision of funds to support review authors (Yes/No), type of economic support (bursary, scholarship, grant, other), total number of applicants, list of countries of the applicants, total number of recipients, list of countries of the recipients, number and titles of SRs published in the Cochrane Library. These data will be entered into a database and double checked. All responses will remain confidential and only aggregated data will be presented. Results: Up to now, more than 70% of all Cochrane entities answered the invitation e-mail (76/106). Among these, 92% agreed to participate (70/76). Only 6 entities sent their apologies for not being able to collaborate. The survey was launched May. Conclusions: The results of this survey will provide practical information about the financial contribution for review authors within the Cochrane Collaboration and the applicability of reviews which do get funded to LMIC.