Becoming more effective actors for evidence-based health systems policy and practice; Experiences of research, research uptake and capacity-building from the ReBUILD research programme consortium
Poster on ReBUILD’s experiences of research uptake and capacity building at national and international levels, presented at the 4th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research 16th-18th November, Vancouver, Canada.
Authors: Nick Hooton, Sreytouch Vong, Haja Wurie, Yotamu Chirwa, Millie Nattimba, Sally Theobald.
For sustainable evidence-based health systems (HS), researchers need skills both
to conduct high-quality research and to support its use in policy and practice.
But lack of national capacity to conduct health systems research (HSR) and weak systems to support evidence-based policy and practice, are magnified in countries recovering from conflict or crisis, with exaggerated imbalances between national and international actors, and low demand and supply of contextualised, nationally-led HSR.
The ReBUILD research programme consortium conducted health systems research in a number of post-conflict settings, with a specified objective of supporting the use of its evidence in policy and practice within partner countries and at international level.
With very different contexts, research uptake strategies have differed significantly between countries. The Context-Evidence-Links framework developed by ODI (described in this poster), is a useful tool to illustrate how research uptake approaches have been adapted based on differences in ‘external environment’, political & economic context, linkages between health systems actors, relevance of ReBUILD evidence to current priorities, and broader context around use of evidence in policy and practice.
Conclusion
- The RPC approach, focusing on research uptake and capacity-building, has enabled evidence to feed into very different policy discussions more flexibly and effectively than individual partners could have managed.
- National partners are better placed for research uptake as evidence emerges and opportunities occur. ReBUILD is also well placed for supporting evidence-based policy and practice for HSS in FCAS.
- ReBUILD’s experience suggests the RPC model does help develop more effective and sustainable capacity for researchers at all levels to be effective actors in evidence-based HSS.