GIN Awards

The Najoua Mlika-Cabanne Innovation Award

This GIN award acknowledges an individual’s contribution to innovation in the methodology, development, and /or implementation of clinical practice guidelines. Previous winners of the Najoua Mlika-Cabanne award have included individuals who have made significant contributions to patient involvement in guidelines, the evidence ecosystem and the development of threshold analysis for low quality evidence.

The award is named in memory of Dr Najoua Mlika-Cabanne ,Trustee of the Guidelines International Network between 2003 and 2010, and GIN Honorary Patron. Najoua died in 2011. Throughout her career Najoua made a significant contribution to the science of clinical guideline development and consistently fostered international collaboration and friendship.   She was a true great in the guideline world and her influence is still felt today in France, her adopted home, in her home country of Tunisia and across the world.

The Najoua Mlika-Cabanne award is determined by a Committee who review the nominations received. We are particularly keen to see nominations for the award for those early in their guideline careers who are contributing in an innovative way to the world of guidelines.

Nomination criteria.

Congratulations to Joanna Khabsa, winner of the 2026 Najoua Mlika-Cabanne Award

Joanne Khabsa is the Coordinator of the AUB GRADE Center, and an active member of GIN, the GRADE Working Group, the Cochrane Methods Equity group, and the MuSE (formerly MultiStakeholder Engagement) core team. She has contributed to collaborative initiatives shaping the future of guideline methodology. Her work focuses on advancing the methods underpinning trustworthy practice guidelines, particularly in the areas of conflict of interest, interest-holder engagement, living approaches, and guideline adaptation. Across these methods, she led and contributed to impactful empirical studies, methodological frameworks, and reporting guidelines.

Joanne also led a series of eleven papers summarizing methodological guidance from organizations that develop practice guidelines (Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 2025). This work has informed initiatives including GRADE-ADOLOPMENT guidance, the GIN-McMaster extensions for equity and interest-holder engagement, and the RIGHT extensions for conflict of interest.

She is a pharmacist and holds a Master of Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from AUB. Through the AUB GRADE Center, she has championed the GRADE approach and rigorous guideline development in the region, including supporting Egypt’s national guideline program and contributing to the first Lebanese GRADE-based guideline (Vitamin D). She has also led several mixed-methods studies on contextual factors directly informing WHO guidelines.

Collectively, Joanne’s work exemplifies the spirit of innovation, collaboration, and impact that the Najoua Mlika-Cabanne Innovation Award seeks to recognize, which is why she was nominated for this Award.

Previous Award Winners

2025 – Danielle Pollock

Dr Danielle Pollock is a nationally and internationally recognised evidence synthesis methodologist and lived experience research stillbirth stigma. She is a Senior Research Fellow and senior member of the Health Evidence Synthesis, Recommendations, and Impact (HESRI) research group, with extensive experience in evidence synthesis methodology, guideline development, and interest holder engagement. She has played a leading role in developing the ANZ Guideline community and advancing how patients and members of the public should be included within the guideline development process.

Danielle has also led work on the role of scoping reviews in guidelines, establishing and coordinating the JBI Scoping Review Network, ANZ Guideline Network, and supporting research teams worldwide in the design and conduct of high-quality reviews.

Her work focuses on advancing evidence-based healthcare through rigorous methodology, respectful collaboration, and meaningful engagement with diverse communities.

Danielle was nominated for her innovative work in developing guidance for scoping reviews in guidelines which has been published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. She champions the inclusion of people with lived experience in guidelines and develops innovative approaches to ensure this is achieved. 

2024 – Dr Yang Song                                                         

Dr Yang Song is a postdoctoral researcher at the Iberoamerican Cochrane Center and is now an Assistant Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen). She has been focusing on improving guideline adaptation methodology and implementation for six years, including leading the work of the RIGHT-Ad@pt checklist, participating in the adaptation of living guidelines, and serving as the vice Chair of the GIN adaptation working group. Dr Song actively proposes new projects to standardize the methodology of the guideline adaptation process and practice the adaptation of international guidelines to achieve a local impact. She has also been involved in different guideline development projects, conducting systematic reviews to support clinical decision-making and presenting evidence synthesis at panel meetings, utilizing the GRADE methodology.

Dr Song was nominated for the award by her PhD thesis supervisor, Dr Pablo Alonso Coello, senior researcher at the Iberoamerican Cochrane Center – Institut de Recerca Sant Pau (IR Sant Pau), for her contribution to moving forward the methodology for guideline adaptation, including living guidelines. Her role as vice chair of the GIN adaptation working group also demonstrates potential leadership in the methodology community.

“I am truly honored to be selected as the 2024 recipient of the prestigious GIN Award, named after the esteemed Dr. Najoua Mlika-Cabanne. I am grateful for this recognition from the GIN community and pledge to continue advancing innovation and collaboration in her legacy”.

2023 – Dr Wojtek Wiercioch

Wojtek Wiercioch winner of the 2023 NMC Award

Dr Wiercioch was nominated for the award by Tamara Lotfi, Senior Research Associate at McMaster University for his contribution to the guideline development world and his commitment to enhancing the processes for it.

“I am incredibly honored to receive the 2023 Najoua Mlika-Cabanne award and wish to share my gratitude to the entire Guidelines International Network. The Najoua Mlika-Cabanne award represents the spirit of collaboration and innovation in guideline development that has truly made me appreciate my involvement with GIN and working with its network of international collaborators throughout the years.”

2022 – Dr Romina Brignardello-Petersen

Dr Brignardello-Petersen is an Assistant Professor at McMaster University and has collaborated asa Guideline Methodologist for the Pan-American Health Organization and the
American Society of Hematology, among others. She has led several projects and working groups on developing GRADE methodology for network meta-analyses, including addressing imprecision, incoherence, and determining thresholds for ranking treatments. Dr Brignardello-Petersen has applied this GRADE methodology in the design and completion of network metanalyses on different topics which in turn have informed the development of clinical guidelines. She has taken on leadership roles in the development of these projects and in the dissemination of the GRADE methodology for network meta-analyses via in person and online courses. She has published over 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals during the past 5 years alone, resulting in over 6000 citations.










2021 Malavika Tampi

Malavika Tampi MPH is the managing methodologist for the Center for Evidence-Based Dentistry at the American Dental Association’s Science and Research Institute (ADASRI) and oversees the development of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. She is also adjunct faculty at the University of Michigan’s School of Dentistry and is working on projects related to health policy and translational research. She is an author of various peer-reviewed clinical practice guideline in dentistry: these include guidelines on the use of antibiotic prophylaxis for prosthetic joint patients, antibiotic therapy for acute dental pain and swelling, nonrestorative treatments for caries, and evaluation of oral cancers.

Her work includes not only the development of systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines, but also the writing of textbooks on evidence-based decision-making, education via intensive workshops on the fundamentals of evidence-based research and practice, and extensive stakeholder and patient engagement. Through her work on the American Dental Association’s guidelines, she has established strong collaborations with international clinical, policy, and methods experts (e.g., the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme), US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and the Cochrane Collaboration’s Oral Health Group. Additionally, she has personally collaborated on vaccination, cardiovascular disease prevention, and infectious diseases research with the Pan American Health Organization, McMaster University’s Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact department, GIN’s Low and Middle Income Countries working group, and the Peggy Lillis Foundation (a C. difficile patient advocacy group).

Malavika was nominated by her supervisor and mentor, Dr. Alonso Carrasco-Labra DDS, PhD, Senior Director for the ADASRI Evidence Synthesis and Translational Research group, for her strategic contributions to the development of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in dentistry. Her team’s systematic reviews, guidelines, and clinical-decision algorithms have consistently ranked as the most-read and downloaded articles in the Journal of the American Dental Association and the International Association of Dental Research’s (IADR) Journal of Dental Research, premier peer-reviewed dental research journals. Furthermore, her contributions to this field have resulted in the ADA’s guidelines being honored by IADR and being presented at international conferences world-wide.

“Thank you to the Guidelines International Network for selecting me as the recipient of the 2021 Najoua Mlika-Cabanne award. I am honored to receive an award named after such an incredible female pioneer and humbled by this recognition of innovative leadership. I am incredibly grateful to all of my collaborators across many disciplines and especially, my incredible team at the American Dental Association. This award would not be possible without them.”

2020 – Dr Hector
Pardo-Hernandez

A consultant at the WHO Regional Office for Europe and a Methods Editor for the Cochrane Common Mental Health Disorders group at the University of York. This was awarded for his contribution to the clinical guideline updating enterprise, specifically in the development of the UpPriority tool and the development of a search strategy for retrieving scientific literature on patients’ values and preferences.

2019 – David Phillippo

Research Associate in Evidence Synthesis in the NICE Technical Support Unit.

This was awarded for his work around how we test confidence in recommendations based on network meta-analyses in a guideline development context, specifically the development of an algebraic approach to threshold analysis, which answers the question, “This evidence may be biased or of low quality, but how much would it have to change before the recommendation changes?”

2018 – Robin Vernooji

The 2018 award winner was Robin Vernooij, a guidelines consultant and information specialist at the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organisation. This was awarded for his innovative work in the methodology of updating CPGs, including the development  of the UpCheck instrument. 

2017 – Linn Brandt

A Doctor in specialist training, at the Department of internal medicine, Diakonhjemmet hospital, and Project Leader on the research project Evicare, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. 

This was awarded in recognition of Linn’s work to create an international network of evidence synthesizers, guideline developers and decision support creators working together to fix a currently broken evidence ecosystem and her contribution to the creation of the MAGICapp.

2016 – Ilkka Kunnamo
and Richard Rosenfeld.

Ilkka Kunnamo was Editor-in-Chief, EBM Guidelines, Duodecim Medical Publications Ltd and EBMeDS, Finland. His award was in recognition of his work to establish both the Finnish electronic evidence based medicine database “Lääkärin Käsikirja”, which is used daily by almost all Finnish health care organisations and professionals, and the Evidence-Based Medicine Electronic Decision Support service (EBMeDS), that integrates electronic health record systems with the evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.

Richard Rosenfeld has been the innovator and driving force behind the guidelines programme at the America Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Foundation. His award was in recognition of his leadership of the GIN North American Community and his contributions to BRIDGE-Wiz (Building Recommendations In a Developer’s Guidelines Editor) to ensure CPG recommendations are clear, actionable and implementable and consumer involvement in the guideline development process.

2015 – Philip van der Wees

Senior Researcher at Radbound University Medical Centre and a member of the European Region of the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (ER-WCPT) Professional Issues Working Group since its inception.

This was awarded for his great success in developing evidence based practice and guidelines within the physical therapy profession

2014 – Jeremy Grimshaw

Senior Scientist at Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, a Full Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Health Knowledge Transfer and Uptake. This was awarded for innovation in the methodology, development and, particularly, in the implementation of clinical practice guidelines.

2013 – Marcia Kelson

The first Najoua Mlika-Cabanne innovation award was presented to Marcia Kelson of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK. Marcia was recognised for her ground-breaking work in patient involvement in clinical guidelines.

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