Eighth national summit of health and population scientists in Nepal: proceeding report; april 10-12, Kathmandu, Nepal.

SUMMARY:

The Eighth National Summit of Health and Population Scientists in Nepal was a continuum of the previous annual summits celebrated every year on the establishment day of NHRC (10-12 April). The summit was a platform for researchers and policy makers to gather together and discuss about the research evidence and their potential implication in regards to the theme of the summit "Advancing Health Policy and Systems Research: Lessons for a Resilient Health System in Nepal". Approximately 2400 people attended the summit in person, and 115,203 people have viewed the program virtually to date. Till date, around 11,113,569 people have been reached through Facebook and around 1634 people have viewed the program on YouTube. There were 39 oral presentations, 77 poster presentations and 31 national and 22 international invited talks and panel discussions in summit covering diverse issues including Strengthening Health Systems in the context of federalism and COVID-19, Health Policy and System Research for Resilient Health System, Strengthening social health protection in Nepal: the role of evidence towards universal health coverage, Health Policy and System Research, Biomedical, Epidemiological and Clinical Research, Global Health and Implementation Research, Strategies for Improving Quality of Medicines and Research in Pharmaceutical Sector, Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health, and Interdisciplinary Research. The 11 different awards in the summit were presented in the following categories: Mrigendra Samjhana Medical Trust Oration Award, NHRC Young Health Scientist Research Award (Health Science), Mrigendra Samjhana Medical Trust Young Health Researcher Award (Medical Doctor), Mrigendra Samjhana Medical Young Health Scientist Research Award (NHRC Employee), Health Research Award, Best Research Paper Award, Best Oral Presentation, Best Poster Presentation, Best Employee Award (NHRC Employee), Best Department Award (NHRC Department) and Health Research Life-time Achievement Award were provided to the best awardees who were selected based on the contribution, creativity and innovation in health research. The declaration of the summit was presented at the end of the summit. The summit was concluded with remarks from the executive chairperson of Nepal Health Research Council.