Submitting a comment
Any interested person or institution can participate in IQWiG's work by submitting comments, and thus draw attention to important arguments, studies or guidelines at an early stage.
A public commenting procedure (i.e. a hearing) is opened on the Institute's homepage for the following products upon publication:
- protocols (called “report plans”, e.g. for benefit assessments of drugs)
- preliminary reports (e.g. for benefit assessments of non-drug interventions or guideline synopses)
- preliminary “ThemenCheck” reports
- drafts of the General Methods (also called Methods Paper)
find out more about the different types of IQWiG reports
Further commenting options:
- There are also commenting procedures for the early benefit assessment of drugs according to AMNOG (dossier assessment), for assessments of the potential of non-drug interventions, and for assessments according to § 137h SGB V, but these are not carried out by IQWiG, but by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA). Information on these commenting procedures can be found on the G-BA website.
We provide information on IQWiG's current commenting procedures on this website and on our homepage.
Your comment must meet certain formal requirements so that we can consider it:
- Form of comments: Comments must be submitted to IQWiG in writing, in German, by the deadline and using the online form for comments. Templates for a comment in plain text or table form, which you can upload in the online form for comments, can be found at the bottom of this page.
- Deadlines: The deadline for submitting comments begins with the publication of the document undergoing a hearing. The deadline for the submission of comments can be found on the IQWiG homepage and on the respective project page. The online form for comments is only available within the commenting period specified on the project page. After this period has expired, no further comments on this project can be submitted. Please ensure that you have completed your comment before the deadline.
- Submission of comments: By clicking on the ‘Submit comment’ button, you send us the data and files you have entered in the online form for comments. You will receive a confirmation of receipt to the e-mail address provided as your correspondence address
Publication by IQWiG
Comments that meet the formal requirements are published on IQWiG's website in full, unchanged and with the names of the commenting persons (authors) and, if applicable, the organization/institution/other in the "Documentation of the hearing". In addition, project-related relevant arguments from the comments are published in the subsequent product as part of the chapter "Assessment of the report plan / preliminary report / preliminary ‘ThemenCheck” report" or the "Documentation and evaluation of the hearing on the draft of the General Methods".
E-mail addresses are not published. Further details on publication can be found in the online form for comments and in the document "Data protection information".
Comments that do not meet the formal requirements are not published and not included in the scientific debate.
contact details
If you have any questions about the commenting procedure or online form (including technical faults), please contact:
for reports: berichte@iqwig.de (Subject: e.g. comment on the preliminary report [report number]).
for the draft of the General Methods: methoden@iqwig.de (Subject: e.g. comment on the General Methods)
If aspects of the written comments remain unclear, the Institute may additionally invite persons submitting comments to a scientific debate.
Such a debate
- is limited to authors whose personal appearance is necessary to clarify questions, Institute staff, external experts and external reviewers. The Institute may limit the number of representatives per comment. This is communicated accordingly in the invitation to the debate.
- takes place in the form of a discussion round
- is not public.
- is conducted in German. Simultaneous translation into other languages is not possible.
If a debate is planned, the date is published on the project page as soon as possible. If the debate takes place, the invitations will be sent to the above-mentioned group of participants.
If no debate takes place (because the Institute does not consider it necessary), all those submitting comments will receive a written cancellation. In the case of the methods paper, information on the date of a planned debate is provided after the comments have been reviewed. After the deadline for submitting comments has expired, the required participants will be explicitly invited in writing, usually 10 working days before the date set by the Institute. If the debate takes place for a health economic evaluation according to §35b SGB V, the participants are invited at least 5 working days before the date of the debate.
Travel expenses are generally not reimbursed.
In exceptional cases, it is possible to be represented by a person previously named to the Institute.
The debate is recorded verbatim by a minute-taker on behalf of IQWiG. The written minutes are published in a separate document "Documentation of the hearing" or "Documentation and evaluation of the hearing" on the project or methods paper webpage. If we deem it necessary, previously unpublished documents will also be published in full text if they were attached to a comment as evidence or if they were mentioned in the course of the debate and subsequently provided after a request by IQWiG.