HSR2020 scientific program takes shape
Between 28th and 30th July, the HSR2020 Program Working Group contacted everyone who had kindly submitted individual abstracts and skills building session proposals to let them know whether their contributions have been accepted for the Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research.
Those whose submissions have been accepted and programmed for phase one of HSR2020 – 8 – 12 November 2020 – were also informed of the dates and times of their sessions in the emails they received. Those who will feature in phases two and three will be sent scheduling details later in September.
As always it was a highly competitive process. Across all the submission streams 3243 abstracts and session proposals were received.
Alongside the 49 organized sessions previously selected by the HSR2020 Program Working Group following a systematic peer review process, 16 skills building and 5 multimedia sessions will be included over the three phases of HSR2020, from November 2020 to March 2021.
Of the 2721 individual abstracts submitted, 910 abstracts will appear across 37 curated sessions and via digital posters on the symposium’s virtual platform.
In terms of how the accepted abstracts correspond with HSR2020’s sub-themes: 47% focus on engaging political forces; 33% on engaging technological, data and social innovations; and 21% consider social, economic and environmental forces.
The country income group and regional distributions of the 910 accepted abstracts are as follows:
- 36% are from high income countries; 34% from lower middle income; 19% from upper middle income; and 11% from low income countries.
- 26% are from Sub-Saharan Africa; 17% from Europe and Central Asia; 16% from South Asia; 16% from North America; 12% from East Asia and the Pacific; 9% from Latin America and the Caribbean; and 4% from the Middle East and North Africa.
The HSR2020 COVID-19 Call, which closed at the end of July, received 74 submissions. The submissions review process will be completed by early September. Those waiting to hear whether their multimedia submissions are to be included in the program should expect to receive a decision by the end of August.
The Health Systems Global Board and Secretariat would once again like to express their immense gratitude to all the people who volunteered their time to yet again deliver the abstract selection peer review process for the global symposium. 300 members of the Scientific Committee reviewed and scored abstracts, using the criteria defined in the call for abstracts. Three reviewers independently reviewed and scored each abstract. An average of the three reviewers scores was then generated and used to rank abstracts.
Following this, members of the Symposium Program Working Group reviewed the high scoring abstracts and organized and distributed them into cohesive sessions across three phases of the symposium.
The Global Symposia cannot take place without the commitment and support of HSG members, Thematic Working Groups, partners and supporters. Thank you all.
Please look out for news about the opening of HSR2020 registration in August.
The HSG Secretariat
