SCIENCE TO ACCELERATE UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE

The Second Global Symposium is dedicated to evaluating progress, sharing insights and recalibrating the agenda of science to accelerate universal health coverage (UHC). UHC is understood here in its broader sense of health service type, accessibility and financial risk coverage.

Continuing with the objectives set in the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in 2010, the 2012 Second Global Symposium will:

• Share new state-of-the art evidence on universal health coverage;
• Review the progress and challenges towards implementation of the global agenda of priority research on accelerating progress towards universal health coverage, including progress since the World Health Report of 2010;
• Facilitate greater research collaboration and learning communities across disciplines, sectors, initiatives and countries;
• Identify and discuss the approaches to strengthen the scientific rigor of health systems research including concepts, frameworks, measures and methods;

In addition, the Second Global Symposium will specifically pursue themes of Inclusion and Innovation within the above overarching objectives. It will:

• Include research on neglected public health priorities; causes of exclusion of populations or problems; and on what works in reducing these exclusions;
• Highlight the innovations across all health systems building blocks that facilitate faster progress towards universal health coverage in an affordable manner.

This year’s programme has been developed based on the experience and feedback of the first symposium received from participants, organizers and the larger community of health systems researchers. While the suggestions received spanned a large array of topics within health systems research (HSR), they specifically recommended the inclusion of neglected topics and population groups, and of innovations that are not only technological but also methodological. Contributors also emphasized the desire to engage in a more interactive way, and with a variety of other stakeholders including policy-makers, and participants from other fields and disciplines related to health systems research.

The Symposium is organized around three themes – one for each day, which are then further detailed into cross-cutting concurrent sessions.

Main daily themes:
1. Knowledge translation
2. State-of-the-art research on HSR
3. HSR methodologies.

Cross-cutting concurrent sessions for each day:
4.   Innovations in HSR
5.   Neglected priorities or population groups in HSR
6.   Financing and capacity building for HSR