Using research evidence for policy-making: evidence briefs for policy. Virtual meeting for countries from Eastern Europe and Central Asia: report of the introductory session, 6 October 2020.

Abstract

The Evidence-informed Policy Network (‎EVIPNet)‎ Europe is an initiative of the WHO Regional Office for Europe. It supports WHO Member States to develop a culture and practice of designing health policies based on the best available research evidence. Annual network meetings with different compositions of members and topics serve as a major platform for communication, collaboration and capacity-building. This report describes the introductory session of the EVIPNet Europe virtual meeting for countries from Eastern Europe and CentralAsia (‎EECA)‎, originally planned as the second multicountry meeting to be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 21–23 September 2020. Building on the first multicountry meeting for the same group of countries held in Kyrgyzstan in February 2020 and aimed at developing a rapid synthesis, the virtual meeting on 6 October 2020 set the scene for a series of practical webinarson the development of evidence briefs for policy (‎EBPs)‎. Presentations by the WHO Secretariat of EVIPNet Europe reiterated the importance of evidence generation and knowledge translation, with special reference to decisionmaking in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the recently adopted European Programme of Work: United for Health. Experiences of two EVIPNet Europe Members – Slovenia and Hungary – in developing their EBPs offered a practical perspective to the process. In the course of the four weeks following the introductory session, a series of five practical webinars focus on the main steps for developing and implementing EBPs