In October 2006, the XIV Cochrane Colloquium will take place in Dublin, the capital city of Ireland. We look forward to welcoming The Cochrane Collaboration to this city of literature, history, excitement and fun.

In 1992, the UK Cochrane Centre opened and, a year later, the first Cochrane Colloquium took place in the meeting room of the home of this Centre, an old, converted bakery in Oxford. Seventy-seven people from 19 countries gathered together and The Cochrane Collaboration was established as an international organization. The growth in the Collaboration since then has been phenomenal. In 2005, more than 13,000 people from almost 100 countries are involved. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, with 36 reviews in 1995, has grown to more than 2500 full reviews and protocols for 1600 more. The reviews are serving to help people make evidence-informed decisions about health care. A great deal has clearly been achieved already but even more work remains ahead of us.

The XIV Cochrane Colloquium will be an opportunity to celebrate what has been achieved and also a chance to assess how the Collaboration can continue to grow and evolve to meet its aims. We shall, of course, be evidence-based but on an island famous for writers, poets and story-tellers, we shall not forget the value of the anecdote and the quotation. In the first half of the twentieth century, Poul Henningsen, the Danish lamp designer, wrote, “Fremtiden kommer af sig selv, det gør fremskridtet ikke” –“The future arrives of its own accord, progress does not”. The Colloquium will help the Collaboration to plan for the future and to continue to make progress. In the second half of the twentieth century, the Irish musician, Bono, sang “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”. The Colloquium will help the Collaboration to consider how to make it easier for people to find what they need to know when making decisions about health care. Finally, as an even older story has it, even the longest journey begins with a first, small move. Whether you will be travelling thousands of miles, or just a few, we hope that move will be the start of a safe and pleasant journey. See you in Dublin!