We are delighted and honoured to take on the role as editors of the International Journal of Health Governance. In our first editorial, we would like to introduce ourselves, provide an overview of the last five years of the journal and its achievements, show how the journal has responded to the needs in the area of health governance in the COVID-19 environment and present our vision for the journal's future. We believe that our different professional backgrounds and areas of expertise will contribute to the journal's strengths and impact. Dr Irina Ibragimova has over 20 years' experience in information and communication technology (ICT) for health projects internationally (in the countries of the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe, and Africa), and for the last two years served as a Regional Editor (Europe) for this journal. Dr Helen Phagava, MD, PhD, MPH, has a versatile experience in non-governmental, academic and clinical sectors, has participated in the numerous international health-related projects and authored more than 70 scientific publications, including two monographs. She is now a lecturer at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, TSMU, Georgia, and her recent research interests are in the field of adolescent health, nutrition and medical education.

Using evidence to address societal challenges COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the need of reliable and up-to-date evidence for decisionmaking. Built on that experience, in 2021 The Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges was formed. The commission grew out of a global network of 55 partners-the COVID-19 Evidence Network to support Decision-making (COVID-END). In January 2022 the commission released a report with 24 recommendations and three implementation priorities (Global Commission, 2022). The independent panel of commissioners brought diverse points of view to creating that report which speaks to the many different types of people who make or can influence decisions about whether and how evidence is used to address societal challenges. Independent commissioners brought complementary perspectives, ranging across most types of societal challenges (and sustainable development goals), all types of decision-makers (government policymakers, organizational leaders, professionals and citizens) and all major forms of evidence.The three formulated implementation priorities are,(1) formalizing and strengthening domestic evidence support systems;(2) enhancing and leveraging the global evidence architecture;(3) putting evidence at the center of everyday life.The report is available in seven languages and matches specific recommendations to multiple stakeholders who are best positioned to make the changes necessary to ensure that evidence is consistently used: multilateral organizations; national and sub-national government policymakers; organizational leaders, professionals and citizens; evidence intermediaries and evidence producers. Update 2023 (released in January 2023) describes the progress toward improving the use of evidence and how all stakeholders are moving from recommendations into action (Global Commission, 2023). Among evidence producers are scientific journals, whose responsibilities are to improve the ways in which they support the use of best evidence. Specific recommendations for the journals are (Global Commission, 2022):(1) to mandate the use of reporting guidance and critical-appraisal checklists by reviewers;(2) to encourage placement of single studies in the context of evidence syntheses;(3) to support sharing of anonymized study data;(4) to commit to publishing non-positive research reports and replication studies;(5) to avoid "spin" and act quickly when apprised of scientific misconduct;(6) to find a timely way to publish updates to living evidence products;(7) to ensure that publication delays never hinder the public sharing of evidence that is urgently needed for decision-making (and reciprocally that public sharing does not preclude later publication in a journal).International Journal of Health Governance (IJHG) is oriented to those concerned with policymaking and governance within government and academia, as well as in public, non-governmental

Reporting guidelines and research frameworksTo make international scientific communication more efficient, research articles and other scientific publications should be complete, concise and clear (EASE, 2018). Established tools to achieve these are reporting guidelines for different types of research as well as research design. Over the last 20 years, more than 400 reporting guidelines have been developed, with some of them being regularly updated (Caulley et al., 2020). They help authors, peer reviewers and journal editors to improve transparency and accessibility of research, as well as to reduce research waste by making it more reproducible (Logullo et al., 2020), but also making it obvious as to what research has taken place to avoid duplication. More importantly, it helps reporting of research in such a manner that it protects both the authors and publishers of such research in avoiding potential unethical practices within both study design and the reporting of results. Such guidelines also aid literature reviewing, where comparing research methods, strengths and weaknesses of research etc. is vital. Completeness of reporting is also potentially associated with higher citation counts (Vilar o et al., 2019).Many initiators of guidelines exist, and it shows that we are heading in the right direction by making research more transparent. A leading international initiative supporting the development and application of reporting guidelines is the EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Networkan "umbrella" organization that brings together researchers, medical journal editors, peer reviewers, developers of reporting guidelines, research funding bodies and other collaborators with mutual interest in improving the quality of research publications and of research itself. They define a research reporting guideline as a checklist, flow diagram or structured text to guide authors in reporting a specific type of research, developed using an explicit methodology, which presents a clear list of reporting items that should appear in a paper and explains how the list was developed. The EQUATOR Library contains a comprehensive database of reporting guidelines that can be searched by study design, by specialty and by section of report (EQUATOR. Search for reporting guidelines).This editorial reports the findings of an analysis of published articles from the last seven