The Campbell Collaboration grew out of a meeting in London in 1999. Eighty people from four countries attended the meeting, many from our sibling organization The Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane had been producing systematic reviews in healthcare, since 1994, and many of its members saw the need for an organization that would produce systematic reviews of research evidence on the effectiveness of social interventions.
Support for this idea from social and behavioural scientists and social practitioners led to the creation of The Campbell Collaboration in 2000. The inaugural meeting in Philadelphia, USA, attracted 85 participants from 13 countries.