WHO Ministerial Summit on Health Research

The World Health Organization will be convening, together with the Government of Mexico, a Ministerial Summit on Health Research from November 16-20, 2004 in Mexico City. The Summit intends to answer the overriding question: What research is needed to reach the healthrelated Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015? Specific objectives of the Summit are to:

• Identify mechanisms by which research can more effectively inform the policy-making process for health and healthcare;
• Develop a priority agenda for research on health systems issues that currently represent the primary constraints to the achievement of the MDGs;
• Acknowledge the imperative for health research systems to go beyond the generation of information, recognizing the complementary importance of access to knowledge and its utilization;
• Endorse specific global collaborative efforts in research that will be characterized as global public goods and improve the accessibility of scientific information by developing countries;
• Galvanize efforts to increase investment for a new and innovative approach to research on health systems.