Iain Chalmers, Coordinator, James Lind Initiative, was founding director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (www.npeu.ox.ac.uk) between 1978 and 1992, and founding director of the UK Cochrane Centre (http://uk.cochrane.org/) between 1992 and 2002 (www.cochrane.nhs.uk). Since 2003, he has coordinated the James Lind Initiative. He edits The James Lind Library (www.jameslindlibrary.org) and Testing Treatments Interactive (www.testingtreatments.org), and contributed to the 2014 Lancet series on reducing waste and adding value in biomedical research (www.rewardalliance.net).