This month, more than 1,000 people will gather in London for a meeting of Cochrane, the group known for its gold-standard reviews of evidence in medicine. The conference marks the 30th anniversary of an organization that helped to spark a worldwide movement to base health care on research.

But in the hallways, some attendees will be discussing whether and how the group can survive. In March, 19 of 52 groups that produce Cochrane’s systematic reviews closed after the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) stopped funding them. And in July, Cochrane UK in Oxford — where the group was founded — revealed that it will close next March, after the NIHR ceased its support.

The closures come amid a major reorganization that will change how Cochrane produces and publishes systematic reviews, instigated partly in anticipation of funding difficulties. Some researchers are concerned that Cochrane will not be able to maintain its output of reviews — which shape the clinical guidelines used by doctors worldwide — or meet the growing demand for more complex, timely evidence syntheses. “I don’t see a very clear or bright future for Cochrane,” says Gabriel Rada, a specialist in evidence-based health care at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, who previously directed Cochrane Chile.

“What’s happened to groups in the UK is very sad,” says Karla Soares-Weiser, editor-in-chief of the organization’s database of evidence, the Cochrane Library in London. “We want Cochrane to be here for the next generation. And there’s adjustments that we have to make to guarantee that this organization is sustainable for the future.”