Our Work

We Research

Ongoing Research Projects

The Global Collaborative on Health Systems Performance 

The Health Systems Innovation Lab launched the Global Collaborative on Health Systems Performance (GC-HSP, formally the Data Collaborative on Health Systems Performance), to harness unexplored data to assess health system performance, to generate new evidence to inform the development of new policies, practice and innovations. 

Learn more about the Global Collaborative on Health Systems Performance

The Global Collaborative for Changing Diabetes in Children (GC-CDiC) 

The Global Collaborative for Changing Diabetes in Children (GC-CDiC) is an initiative led by the Health Systems Innovation Lab at Harvard University, with sponsorship from Novo Nordisk. This project aims to significantly advance the understanding and management of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) in children and adolescents across various countries. By establishing a virtual cohort and implementing a comprehensive cohort study, the GC-CDiC seeks to generate new insights into the etiology, pathogenesis, and optimal management of T1D, while also identifying effective health system adaptations and innovations to improve patient outcomes on a large scale. 

Learn more about The Global Collaborative for Changing Diabetes in Children (GC-CDiC)

Lancet Oncology Commission on Cancer in the Commonwealth 

Lancet Oncology Commission on Cancer in the Commonwealth is an initiative aimed at enhancing cancer care across Commonwealth countries. This project is driven by a commitment to address the multifaceted challenges of cancer care through comprehensive and collaborative efforts.

Learn more about the Lancet Oncology Commission on Cancer in the Commonwealth

Transitioning to High-Value Health Systems in G20+ Countries 

The report highlights G20+ nations’ challenges with rising healthcare costs and disparities. Their goal is efficient, equitable, and effective healthcare. Despite efforts, no major population-level impact is seen. Harvard’s HSIL introduces a 10-component High-Value Health System Model. While countries have adopted parts of this model, none have fully realized it. 

Learn more about Transitioning to High-Value Health Systems in G20+ Countries

Global Health Policy Lab 

The “Global Health Policy Lab” (GHPL) is a collaboration between Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab and the Charité Center for Global Health. Aiming to bolster global health via digital tools, it seeks to digitalize health laws and policies, aligning with WHO’s Digital Health Strategy. By bridging science and policy, GHPL, backed by the Virchow Foundation and partnered with the World Health Summit, targets improved global health outcomes.

Learn more about the Global Health Policy Lab

Digital Health Systems

DHS collab brings together an international, multidisciplinary team of academic, clinical, enterprise, and policy stakeholders in both the public and private sectors. The DHS collab seeks to generate evidence for and promote value-based digital transformations for health care for better patient health outcomes at the population level.

Learn more about Digital Health Systems

Health Regulatory Senior Executive Leadership Program

This program, led by the University of the Witwatersrand and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, aims to strengthen national regulatory authorities by enhancing the leadership and regulatory skills of national regulatory leaders. 

Learn more about the Health Regulatory Senior Executive Leadership Program

The Health Systems and Cancer Initiative in Latin America  

About HSCI-LA

The Health Systems and Cancer Initiative in Latin America (HSCI-LA) project is a multi-country collaboration involving Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil. The aim of the project is to analyze health system performance in managing cancer and to help improve the response of countries to the rising burden of cancer. The HSCI-LA Learning Network provides a platform for health professionals, researchers, policymakers, civil society, and innovators for joint learning, experience sharing, design, and innovation to catalyze the development of high-value health systems to address cancer in Latin America.

Reports

The first country-level study reports, ‘Addressing the rising burden of cancer: Challenges & opportunities’ for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, are available on the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC)’s website. Click here to access.

Click to see the the first country-level study reports

Global Health and Population Project on Access to Care for Cardiometabolic Diseases (HPACC)  

The Global Health and Population Project on Access to Care for Cardiometabolic Diseases (HPACC) is an international consortium aimed at addressing cardiometabolic disease concerns globally. It collects and harmonizes data, especially from low- and middle-income countries, aiming to fill research gaps and become a leading center for data sharing and analysis. 

Learn more about Global Health and Population Project on Access to Care for Cardiometabolic Diseases (HPACC) 

Previous Research Projects

Strategic Public Private Partnerships

Strategic Public Private Partnerships are highly targeted collaborative partnerships purposefully designed to create value in health systems for patients, communities, economies, and society at large. Strategic PPPs are long-term relationships, based on the principles of trust, integrity and interdependence, and are critical to manage major health threats such as cardiovascular disease and can help diffuse transformative innovations independent of health system maturity or GDP per capita.

Learn more about Strategic Public Private Partnerships

Innovative Financing

The Health Systems Innovation Lab has led several seminal studies that focus on innovative financing and uses the evidence generated to engage organizations, governments, and ventures to develop sustainable financing mechanism to enable the delivery of more effective, efficient, and responsive health services in major priority areas, including among others, surgery, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and HIV/AIDS, and Malaria.

Learn more about Innovative Financing

We Teach

With a focus on learning and translation, the lab draws on its research and policy engagement in comparative health systems to promote learning among students and healthcare leaders in health systems innovation. We develop curricular content for graduate-level training at Harvard and executive education for healthcare leaders to support health policy and practice at the global level.

Explore the multiple education and training areas in which we work:

Courses

We offer graduate-level courses for students at Harvard, MIT, and Harvard teaching hospitals. We lead the courses “Fundamentals of Global Health” and Innovation and Global Health Systems” at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Courses include:

• GHP 557
• ID 552
• MPH 102

Learn more about course offerings

Executive Education

The lab develops specialized courses for healthcare managers, executives and emerging leaders to create high-value health systems and enhance performance for healthcare organizations and clinical departments. Placing importance on pedagogy to deliver durable learning to practitioners, the lab identifies and develops health systems case studies to enable in-depth engagement with core theory, applied principles and create a discursive classroom environment. We currently have several executive education offerings through the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Centre for Executive and Continuing Education, including a 5-6 month Global Public Health Leadership Program, a Health Leadership Development Program for the Gulf Health Council, High Value Surgical Systems Course, High Value Health Systems Course, and a one-day immersion course on Creating a Data-Driven High Value Health System.

Learn more about Executive Education

Training

We developed a Health Systems Innovation Research Scholars Program for mid-level researchers (graduate level) and clinical residents (in all disciplines) to develop leadership competency in developing and translating recent evidence into policy and practice at the global level. Research Scholars function as core members within the lab and are immersed in a hybrid program of research, teaching, innovation and administration activities within the lab and with our collaborative partner network.

We have developed an internship program for undergraduate students that is centered around the student to provide highly motivated individuals with structured mentorship and individualized internships. Interns will function as student research assistants within the lab and will graduate from the program with a specific output that will assist them in achieving their professional objectives. The experience provides a safe and flexible platform for students to understand better and refine their career purpose, ambitions and long-term goals – alongside other students from around the world dealing with similar questions, from varied settings and diverse experiences. While most of our students tend to be medical, public health, engineering, and economics students, all students are encouraged to apply.

Training at the Health Systems Innovation Lab includes:

• Harvard Practicum
• HSIL Scholars
• HSIL Interns

Learn more about training and applying for internships here

We Innovate

Annual ‘Building High Value Health Systems’ Hackathon

Join the 2025 Harvard Health Systems Innovation Hackathon!

The Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab is organizing its 6^th annual Hackathon on Friday, April 11^th and Saturday, April 12^th, 2025.

Theme: ‘Building High-Value Health Systems: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence’

Be a part of a global event with hundreds of participants in Boston and across Innovation Hubs in Boston, Beijing, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Dhaka, Hanoi, Islamabad, Istanbul, London, Monterrey, Nairobi, Punjab, Santiago de Chile, São Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, and more! Together, we will develop groundbreaking solutions that can revolutionize healthcare using Artificial Intelligence.

This year’s Innovation Hubs include:

• Boston, USA – hosted by the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab
• Beijing, China – hosted by Tsinghua University
• Bogotá, Colombia – hosted by Universidad del Rosario
• Buenos Aires, Argentina – hosted by Universidad Los Andes
• Cape Town, South Africa – hosted by University of Cape Town (and co-organized by PATH)
• Dhaka, Bangladesh – hosted by Institute of Research, Innovation, Incubation and Commercialization (IRIIC), United International University (and co-organized by PATH)
• Hanoi, Vietnam – hosted by Hanoi Medical University (and co-organized by PATH)
• Islamabad, Pakistan – hosted by National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST) and IGNITE (and co-organized by PATH)
• Istanbul, Türkiye – hosted by Koç University
• Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – hosted by Prince Mohammed bin Salman College (MBSC)
• Johannesburg, South Africa – hosted by Wits Business School
• London, UK – hosted by King’s College London
• Monterrey, Mexico – hosted by Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León
• Nairobi, Kenya – hosted by iLabAfrica at Strathmore University and Nairobi University (and co-organized by PATH)
• Punjab, India – hosted by IIT Ropar
• Santiago de Chile, Chile – hosted by Andrés Bello National University, the Catholic University of Chile and CECAN
• São Paulo, Brazil – hosted by Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) and Innova HC
• Singapore – hosted by NTU Singapore
• Sydney, Australia – hosted by Westmead Precinct and University of Sydney (and co-organized by PATH)
• Toronto, Canada – hosted by Dalla Lana School of Public Health

What to Expect

• Hackathon Structure: Over two engaging days at your local hub, teams will tackle healthcare challenges, devising innovative solutions and refining their ideas with the support of local mentors, with expertise in healthcare, health systems, Artificial Intelligence, and digital health. You will present your pitch to a local judging panel at the end of day two, where the first-place winning teams from each hub will advance to impress a global panel online in the following two weeks. Successful teams will join the lab’s online four-week Venture Incubation Program set for May/June 2025 (approximately two events/week with flexible scheduling & individual mentoring).
• Who can participate?: We are seeking enthusiastic students, postdocs, and young professionals who are passionate about innovation, and leveraging AI health solutions. We are looking for a diversity of applicants forming cross-disciplinary teams leveraging expertise in healthcare, public health, medicine, engineering, computer science, and business.
• Team criteria: Our Hackathon is designed to support early-stage innovations, fostering an environment where individuals and teams can develop and refine their ideas. While mature innovations are welcome, the focus is on early-stage development. Over the two-day event, participants can identify a health system challenge or work on a pre-existing idea related to health and AI. We’ve identified 11 priority challenges which will be shared with the participants, but their use is optional.
• Team size: We recommend forming diverse teams of 3-5 members to enhance the innovation process. Participants can join as individuals, teams, or early-stage startups, working on either non-profit or for-profit ventures. For those wishing to participate in the Post-Hackathon Venture Incubation Program, conducted in English, at least one or two team members should be proficient in the language. Please make sure that all team members register individually.
• Prototyping and presentation: There is no requirement for teams to present fully working prototypes during the pitches. Concept-stage ideas are welcome, and we’re open to creative presentation methods. The key is for teams to convey a clear understanding of how their prototype would function. Judges will be looking for compelling presentations that effectively communicate the concept and potential impact of your innovation.
• Team formation: Once applicants are accepted into the Hackathon, they can join a Zoom Q&A session, held by their local Hub two weeks before the event. This session is an opportunity to introduce themselves, explore specific challenges, and ask questions. Additionally, Slack groups will be set up for each Hub. Teams can be formed on Slack before the Hackathon begins or on the first day of the event.

Apply today!

The registration deadline is March 31st (or until capacity has been reached).

Registration is closed for Boston, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Monterrey.

What are Hackathons?

Every year we organise a Hackathon together with our partners. The Health Systems Innovation Lab (HSIL) Hackathon is a transformative event with a clear mission: to empower innovators to create solutions that enhance healthcare systems globally. 

By fostering an environment that encourages unconventional thinking and practical implementation, it serves as a catalyst for positive change in healthcare delivery. Participants are driven to develop groundbreaking solutions that can revolutionize healthcare, bridging the gap between theory and practice. The impact of these innovations extends beyond the hackathon, potentially leading to improvements in patient care, operational efficiency, and the overall adaptability of healthcare systems.

Previous Hackathons

2021 

• “Hackathon Asia: Type 1 Diabetes – Global Collaborative for Changing Diabetes in Children” 

2022  

• “Hackathon Africa: Digital Solutions to Transform Diabetes Health Care in Africa”  

• “Africa Health Conference: Building Resilience and the Future of Health in Africa” 

2023 

• “Hackathon Latin America: Digital Solutions for building High-Value Health Systems” 

2024  

• “Building High-Value Health Systems: Harnessing Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence” 

HSIL Venture Incubation Program

The Venture Incubation Program is a remote program designed to provide continuity following the annual HSIL Hackathon and grow early-stage ventures poised to contribute substantially to health system innovation through digital health solutions. As a collaborative program, HSIL leverages international expertise and regional insights to nurture transformative projects. The ultimate objective of the program is to accelerate health system improvements and drive better patient outcomes by incubating promising innovative projects emanating from the HSIL Annual Health Systems Innovation Hackathon. 

The Venture Incubation Program takes place virtually and is structured around the key elements of a venture development: 1) Defining a problem and refining the innovation (solution), 2) Finding the right business model and developing a go-to-market strategy, 3) Developing a product and minimal viable innovation, 4) Finding the appropriate funding strategy to support the team reaching its goals. 

Ventures Incubated