Learning sites are a novel research approach being used in South Africa and Kenya to better understand the health system. They are based on long-term collaboration with health managers, where researchers become ‘embedded’ within the health system and work with managers to identify and solve governance-related problems.

At the RESYST annual meeting members of the RESYST governance research group met to discuss their experiences of working in Learning Sites. In Kenya and South Africa, researchers have established learning sites specifically to support a wide range of research focused on health systems governance issues at the district level. Both countries have devolved government structures and county (Kenya) and provincial and district (South Africa) managers now play a pivotal role in the development, management and delivery of health services.

The discussion provides concrete examples of learning site engagements and cross-site comparisons as well as covering the following questions:

• What is a learning site?
• How did the learning sites emerge?
• What is the value of learning sites to Health Policy and Systems Research?
• What is the value to health system managers?
• How can you ensure that learning site based research is systematic and rigorous?

Listen to the podcast here.