Ken Stein

Ken graduated in medicine from the University of Bristol in 1987, then trained and worked as a general practitioner in Australia, New Zealand and Hampshire before specialising in public health medicine in Southampton. In 1999 he moved to Exeter as Consultant in Public Health Medicine, then was Director of Public Health for a Primary Care Trust.  He combined this NHS position with academic work at the University of Exeter as founding Director of the Peninsula Technology Assessment Group, PenTAG from 2001.  PenTAG carried out Health Technology Assessments and Public Health evidence synthesis for NICE and a programme of Cochrane Reviews.  Ken was a member, then vice chair of one of NICE's Technology Appraisal Committees from 2004 to 2017 and remains involved in HTA.  Ken was appointed to a Chair in Public Health in 2007 and became Deputy Director of what is now NIHR ARC for SW Peninsula (PenARC) in 2008.  Ken was founding editor of the first title in NIHR's Journals Library (HTA) in 1998 and now Editor-in-Chief of the Library, ensuring publication of all commissioned outputs from five NIHR's research programmes. In 2018, Ken was appointed as Director of the NIHR Evidence Synthesis Programme and leads NIHR commissioning of Cochrane and Campbell reviews and support to NICE's Technology Appraisal Programme.

Ken spoke at 'Virtually Cochrane', a virtual event we co-hosted with Cochrane Ireland in April 2021. Watch the recording Covid and beyond: Perspectives on how Cochrane can respond to the needs of users