In May 2021, the HSSA launched a series of virtual meetings to cocreate a vision and action plan for a more responsive and robust health policy and system research ecosystem in Asia. The P4H Network and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research agreed to colead development of a framework for assessing and improving domestic funding for HPSRIs in Asia, one of the cocreation series. This pairs with strengthening the ecosystem for health systems and policy research.
Since March 2022, the Seoul National University Graduate School of Public Health has been the implementing partner of this pilot, led by Soonman Kwon. On 25 October 2023, the HSSA convened a cocreation pilot progress meeting. P4H-CFP Inuk Hwang provided a short update on the piloting of domestic financing of HPSRIs in Asia. He briefly mentioned the pilot’s main objective, which was to develop a conceptual framework to assess and promote a domestic funding mechanism for HPSRIs in Asia. The research team developed that framework based on a mixed method of research, consisting of desk reviews, in-person interviews and surveys. Thailand and Viet Nam were selected as pilot countries. The work put into the pilot programme enabled developing the conceptual framework for actions at different levels to strengthen the health systems.
The draft framework will be further refined to test and address some challenges that were revealed during the pilot. These include the ambiguity of the definition for HPSR, relative dearth of funding for HPSR compared to clinical research, lack of a stand-alone budget and budget data for HPSR, and fragmentation in funding arrangements. During implementation of the pilot, an existing network of individual experts and development partners proved its value to conduct the field research. The next step is to integrate the pilots within the HSSA and promote and implement them as feasible and consistent with partner institutions’ activities in 2024 and beyond. The P4H Network is interested in completing the domestic financing framework for HPSRIs and implementing the L4UHC programme in Asia as part of the enhanced training and learning workstream of the HSSA for Asia.
