Peter Doshi is the initiator of the RIAT Initiative. Peter is an associate professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and associate editor at The BMJ (formerly, British Medical Journal). His research focuses on the drug approval process, how the risks and benefits of medical products are communicated, and improving the credibility and accuracy of evidence synthesis and biomedical publications. Doshi co-authored (with Tom Jefferson and Mark Jones) a systematic review of neuraminidase inhibitors for influenza using innovative methods for evaluating regulatory information including clinical study reports. Doshi completed a fellowship in comparative effectiveness research at Johns Hopkins and received his Ph.D. in history, anthropology, and science, technology and society from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Please visit the BMJ editorial staff website for a statement of competing interests.

Tom Jefferson is a physician, researcher and campaigner for access to randomised controlled trial data. For many years, Tom was denied access to regulatory data on which to base the Cochrane reviews he co-authors. At present, Tom is the first author of the only Cochrane review based solely on unpublished on regulatory data. The review of Neuraminidase inhibitors for preventing and treating influenza was a major methodological development in the field of evidence-based medicine. It challenged opinion across the regulatory, industrial and policy arenas, and has since been added as a landmark within the James Lind Library. It was the most accessed review in the Cochrane Library in 2014. The review was published in April 2014, both on the Cochrane Library and the BMJ, and was the culmination of a 4-year campaign to obtain a complete set of previously unseen 107 clinical study reports. Currently Tom is stabilizing the suite of influenza vaccines reviews he is co-author of, and is co-authoring a review of regulatory evidence on HPV vaccines. Tom is also a Senior Associate Tutor at the University of Oxford. Please visit this page for a statement of competing interests.

Mark Jones is a Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics at University of Queensland School of Public Health and Deputy Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Collaborating Group for Acute Respiratory Infections. His research interests include evaluation of medical interventions using systematic reviews of clinical trials and pharmaco-epidemiology. Dr Jones has made significant research contributions in the areas of systematic reviews, treatment of stuttering, infectious disease and clinical trials. He conducted the first clinical trial of a behavioural treatment for stuttering in preschool children and contributed to the first systematic review of antivirals for influenza to be based entirely on regulatory information. Please visit this page for a statement of competing interests.

Kyungwan Hong is a Graduate Student in the Pharmaceutical Health Services Research (PHSR) program at the University of Maryland, School of Pharmacy. He received his Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) and Masters of Sciences in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Concentration in Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics) from University of Rhode Island. Kyungwan’s research interests include medication usage, patient safety, and improving medical evidence.

Sarah Tanveer is a PhD Student in the Pharmaceutical Health Services Research (PHSR) program at the University of Maryland, School of Pharmacy. She received her Master of Arts from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Sarah’s research interests include evidence synthesis, causal inference, design and conduct of clinical trials, and evidence-based health policy.