The South African Cochrane Centre recently conducted a two-day workshop on evidence-based healthcare (EBHC) research methods for staff and postgraduate students at the University of Venda. Hosted at the 2Ten Hotel in Limpopo from 17-19 March 2025, this hybrid workshop was facilitated by Prof Mark Engel and Lorenzo Bennie and attended by post graduate students and staff members with the aim to provide participants with practical tools that can be incorporated into their research activities.

The workshop covered a range of relevant topics such as refining your research questions, searching for relevant articles, critically appraising included articles and a meta-analysis primer. A key feature of this workshop was the interactive sessions where participants were encouraged to work on their research questions and to ultimately present their work for constructive feedback from peers, based on EBHC methods.

Lorenzo Bennie remarked, “This workshop deepened the participants' understanding of EBHC methods and contributed to a supportive learning environment.  The interactive sessions, where participants were given practical hands-on training, allowed participants to apply their new-found skills to their own manuscripts."