The First Research Dialogue of the Japan Health Policy and Systems Research Forum

On March 11, 2026, the First Research Dialogue of the Japan Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) Forum was held online.

This forum was launched in July 2025 through the leadership of seven organizations including JICA that were members of the Local Organizing Committee of the 8th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research 2024 (HSR2024) , held in Nagasaki in November 2024. The forum has the following three objectives:

1) Establish and maintain a network of health policy and systems researchers in Japan, and advance HPSR from global perspectives;
2) Promote global dissemination of information on the current status, challenges and strengths of Japanese health policy and systems;
3) Compile an inventory of methods used in HPSR and implement skills mapping of resource persons within member organizations of the forum.

The Research Dialogue was the first ever activity of the forum. After Kita Kiyoshi, Professor, Nagasaki University, gave opening remarks, presentations were made in Part I, which was followed by Part II, a discussion session. Murakami Hitoshi, Deputy Director General, Department of Human Resource Development, Bureau of Global Health Cooperation, Japan Institute for Health Security, was the moderator for both Parts I and II.

In Part I, presentations on a wide range of topics and a Q&A session took place. The following topics were covered: the empirical research “Political Economy Analysis and Social Equity Analysis of Health Financing Reform in Senegal: Toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC),” by Togawa Shotaro, JICA; policy process for the formulation of a nursing development plan in Laos; health policy research methods, drawing on a case study of human resource development in nursing in Cambodia; development of analytical frameworks to integrate programs for measures against neglected tropical diseases into national healthcare systems; introduction to the People’s Voice Survey, an international research initiative to evaluate the quality of healthcare systems; and a case study of the improvement of healthcare waste management using 5S and kaizen methodologies at state-level referral hospitals in Tanzania, conducted by Ishijima Hisahiro, JICA Expert (also Director, Department of Research and Planning, Fujita Planning).

In Part II, Takizawa Ikuo , Principal Research Fellow, JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development (JICA Ogata Research Institute), participated in discussions on a wide range of topics, including the benefits and risks of using existing frameworks for policy analysis. Takizawa contributed to deepening discussions on what HPSR should look like by highlighting two key points: first, the risk of making the analysis overly complex when an inappropriate framework is applied; and second, the importance of ensuring that the core elements of the framework are easily understood by non-academic users.

The symposium closed with remarks from Makimoto Saeda, Senior Deputy Director General, JICA. Makimoto expressed high hopes for the Japan HPSR Forum to facilitate the following and lead to collaboration among JICA, consultants, academic researchers and stakeholders within and outside of Japan: improvement of the quality of international cooperation including ODA; communication of the achievements of international cooperation in more versatile ways; and international sharing of insight on Japan’s experience and domestic policy. The Japan HPSR Forum plans to hold semi-annual research dialogues from now on.

Information about HSR2024-related efforts of the JICA Ogata Research Institute can be found here: