Background: Cochrane is a large organisation with groups with widely dispersed teams. Cochrane Schizophrenia is no exception with the editorial base in the UK – split between England and Scotland, editors in seven nations and over 1300 reviewers in 41 countries. Employers, funders and Cochrane expect training and support – and some face-to-face time is necessary for this. Core funding, from UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), does include support for meetings.

Objectives: to investigate Cochrane meeting costs.

Methods: crude estimates of costs (mostly registration, travel and accommodation) for only the core Cochrane Review Group (CRG) team (3 staff and Co-eds) for financial year 2018-19

Results: please see Table 1.

Conclusions: UK funding for Cochrane work is in a privileged position with (for Cochrane Schizophrenia) around GBP 3000/annum for travel and meetings. With a local Colloquium, 2018-19 should have been a year to be within budget. It was not. Expenditure of public funds in this way is unsustainable. Cochrane has considerable resource and supports its staff to travel and attend necessary meetings. For some meetings Cochrane grants one free place per CRG. Cochrane income remains dependent on investment of public funds and yet the necessary networking depends on yet more taxpayer investment. Something has to give.

Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: None