Informing health policy processes through research Bridging health and political science approaches when informing health systems decisions

Improving performance of health systems is needed in both developed and developing countries. The main challenges today are not related to developing new technologies and clinical interventions, but to understand how to scale up and deliver health care an d how the system should be financed, organized and governed. Health systems research may deliver on these knowledge needs, but there are at present gaps in research utilization when embarking on health reforms. The objective of this project is to improve health policy processes by focusing on how knowledge from health system research is synthesized and produced and on mechanisms for supporting the use of research in policy processes. The project will aim at contributing to bridging the divide between rese archers and policy makers and managers, and also bridge across different disciplines like health research and political science and between proponents of different research designs (experimental vs observational, quantitative vs qualitative). The work wi ll be conducted at Harvard School of Public Health and at Kennedy School of Government and in collaboration with a network of institutions and researchers linked through the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at WHO.