The RESYST annual meeting is currently underway in Kilifi, Kenya, providing a fantastic opportunity for partners to come together and discuss their cross-site research experiences, findings and plans for the future.

The first days of the meeting were structured to allow discussions within RESYST’s three thematic groups: financing, governance and health workforce.

In the Governance group, amongst other things, researchers spoke about their work in the learning sites. 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.

The participants who have had experience working in learning sites came together and asked how they might describe a learning site to others. Through a brainstorming session they came up with the following key words that represent the nature of a learning site. This word cloud sheds light on the characteristics of the unique, action-learning approach. Click here for full size image.

You can read more about Shakira Choonara’s experience of working on a Learning site in the following blog: ‘Why HPSResearchers should be action-learning enthusiasts’.