"EVIPNet is taking Europe by storm," said Dr Claudia Stein, Director, Division of Information, Evidence, Research and Innovation, WHO/Europe, when opening the third Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) Europe multicountry meeting together with the Minister of Health of Lithuania, Ms Rimantė Šalaševičiūtė, in Trakai, located in the beautiful pine tree forest of Lithuania.
This meeting, which took place on 10–12 June 2015, was part of an ongoing effort to work towards building national capacity in evidence-informed policy-making to support the implementation of Health 2020. After the first multicountry meeting in 2013 in Turkey, and the second multicounty meeting (a train-the-trainers workshop) in 2014 in Slovenia, this year's multicountry meeting was the biggest ever – with 25 members of EVIPNet Europe country teams and 12 heads of country offices – and a great success.
The meeting agenda was rich, spanning from knowledge translation platform establishment and operationalization, to strengthening evidence-informed policy-making communication and policy dialogue facilitation skills, to introducing "outcome mapping", a new methodology to plan/monitor/evaluate activities at country level. The meeting also featured a high-level panel discussion on knowledge brokering and the launch of EVIPNet Europe's virtual forum that will help members to share knowledge and experiences across the WHO European Region.
Participants exchanged country experiences and lessons learned in implementing the EVIPNet Europe pilot phase; revised their evidence-informed policy-making roadmaps to plan for remaining activities in 2015, as well as to plan actions for the next biennium; and gained valuable knowledge and skills in the technical areas mentioned above.
The unique opportunity for heads of country offices, EVIPNet Europe champions and new members to meet face-to-face was vital – not only to increase capacity, but also to further strengthen the Network's ties. The EVIPNet Europe Secretariat continues to work closely with its Member States to make the Network stronger, as well as to roll it out to other countries in the Region.