American University of Beirut

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The Center for Systematic Reviews on Health Policy and Systems Research (SPARK) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) was established in 2013 funded by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at the World Health Organization (WHO). The Center is a joint collaboration between the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) and the Faculty of Medicine (FM).​

​​Mission Statement SPARK specializes in the production of systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis products that respond to health policy and system priorities. SPARK also builds capacity to conduct systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis products at the individual, team, institutional, and system level. Vision SPARK's vision is to become the leading resource center for producing high quality evidence synthesis products on health policy and systems priorities in the Eastern Mediterranean Region and beyond. SPARK Publications​ For SPARK publications (Click here​).

​Recent News SPARK Center recently celebrated its fourth anniversary during a ceremonial event attended by Deans, faculty members and researchers within and outside of AUB. Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw (University of Ottawa, Canada) also joined the event. For more information, please Click Here SPARK was among the top 10 influencers at the Global E vidence Summit 2017 in South Africa.  SPARK has participated in the Global Evidence Summit (GESummit) 2017 in South Africa.   SPARK Center was appointed as the General Secretariat of the Global Evidence Synthesis Initiative (GESI). For more Information, (Click here).  ​

Recent Activities Capacity Building Workshops: Global Evidence Su​mmit -  Workshop On Capacity Building in​ Conducting Systematic Reviews -​ September 12-16, 2017 ​ Systematic Review Methods Workshop, Beirut (In Collaboration with EviEM) (1-2 June, 2017) Effective Communication of Health Evidence for Impactful Policy Decisions and Action (In Collaboration with K2P Center) (22-24 March, 2017)  WHO EMRO SUPPORT summary ​workshop: evidence for policy-makers - November 15-18, 2015 P​articipations in Conferences: Expert Consultation on Fostering Institutional and Structural Capacity for Evidence Based Health Policy Making (29-30 November, 2017)​​ Global Evidence Summit 2017 (September 12-16, 2017) Fifth Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) Europe Multi-country Meeting on Using Research Evidence for PolicyMaking (14-16 June, 2017)  4th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (November 14-18, 2016​) The 24th Cochrane Colloquium (October 2016) ​ For more SPARK activities (Click here​ ​to view Activities​).​​