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Current conditions have intensified the need for health systems to engage in the difficult task of priority setting. As the search for a “magic bullet” is replaced by an appreciation for the interplay between evidence, interests, culture, and outcomes, progress in relation to these dimensions requires assessment of achievements to date and identification of areas where knowledge and practice require attention most urgently. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

An international survey was administered to experts in the area of priority setting. The survey consisted of open-ended questions focusing on notable achievements, policy and practice challenges, and areas for future research in the discipline of priority setting. It was administered online between February and March of 2015.

“Decision-making frameworks” and “Engagement” were the two most frequently mentioned notable achievements. “Priority setting in practice” and “Awareness and education” were the two most frequently mentioned policy and practical challenges. “Priority setting in practice” and “Engagement” were the two most frequently mentioned areas in need of future research.

Sampling bias toward more developed countries. Future study could use findings to create a more concise version to distribute more broadly.

Globally, these findings could be used as a platform for discussion and decision making related to policy, practice, and research in this area.

Whilst this study reaffirmed the continued importance of many longstanding themes in the priority setting literature, it is possible to also discern clear shifts in emphasis as the discipline progresses in response to new challenges.

AFTER some unsuccessful negotiations during the period when the first full‐time schools of librarianship were being established, the Birmingham School was founded in the autumn of 1950. Circumstances were not entirely favourable—the immediate post‐war generation of enthusiastic ex‐service students had already passed through other schools; the accommodation available was indifferent; the administrative support was bad; resources were weak, both in books and in equipment. There was, more importantly, a strong local tradition of part‐time classes in librarianship and little or no conviction that full‐time study was necessary or desirable.

I ENTERED the literary world late in the immediate post‐war years when changes of literary taste and loyalty were already in the air. The first broadcast I gave was, I remember, an attack upon Virginia Woolf. Her books had nurtured me as an adolescent, and I was in reaction against her influence.

BIRMINGHAM is the largest city in Great Britain, after London, and it is often called “The Second City”. It lies in the very centre of England, in Shakespeare's county of Warwickshire, 114 miles from London, 90 from Bristol, and less than 100 from Liverpool and Manchester.

THE training model to be discussed is based on an integrated set of manual and mechanised indexing systems, all handling the same body of information from a limited subject field. By extending the scope of the model's operations to include prior and subsequent activities like the selection and abstracting of the documents to be indexed, and the preparation and dissemination of material through the use of the indexes, the model may be used for a wide range of documentation training, principally at three levels: demonstration by the lecturer to the students; use by the students in the retrieval and dissemination of information; and development by the students through the selection and abstracting of documents, the indexing and storage of information and ultimately the use of feedback from the dissemination stage to improve the systems.

Shortly before the Second World War, a woman who had never accepted her orphan status, Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, nicknamed ‘Little Coco’ by her father and known as ‘Coco’ to her relatives, became the first women in history to build a world-class industrial empire. By 1935, Coco, a fashion designer and industry captain, was employing more than 4,000 workers and had sold more than 28,000 dresses, tailored jackets and women's suits. Born into a poor family and raised in an orphanage, she enjoyed an intense social life in Paris in the 1920s, rubbing shoulders with artists, creators and the rising stars of her time.

Thanks to her entrepreneurial skills, she was able to innovate in her methods and in her trendsetting approach to fashion design and promotion. Coco Chanel was committed and creative, had the soul of an entrepreneur and went on to become a world leader in a brand new sector combining fashion, accessories and perfumes that she would help shape. By the end of her life, she had redefined French elegance and revolutionized the way people dressed.