was involved in the setting up and running ARIF, a research dissemination unit at Birmingham University to provide support on finding and interpreting evidence to commissioners of health care in the West Midlands health region. Subsequently, he was involved in health technology assessments, particularly to support the work of NICE, and was appointed Director of West Midlands Health Technology Assessment Collaboration. He was also closely connected with the setting up and development of the National Blood Service Systematic Reviews Initiative in Oxford and was an editor of the NHS HTA program\'s monograph series for several years. His current work is focused on systematic review methods, health technology assessment and evaluation of tests. He has been involved in the development of the Cochrane diagnostic test accuracy review methods, isa member of the Cochrane DTA editorial team and also a member of NICE's Diagnostic Assessment Committee.

Supplementary Material
======================

###### Additional file 1

Results from the online survey.

###### 

Click here for file

Acknowledgments
===============

We wish to acknowledge the contribution of Prof. Patrick Bossuyt (University of Amsterdam), Dr. Claire Davenport (University of Birmingham), Dr. Mariska Leeflang (University of Amsterdam), Dr. Yemisi Takwoingi (University of Birmingham) who sat at the project's steering committee and contributed to the development of its design, the interpretation of the results and the editing of the final report.

RG is partially supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) for the South West Peninsula and by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund Convergence Program for Cornwall