Strengthen implementation and operational research capacity.
There are a few policy questions which need to be answered in due course. ABP should also be an opportunity to strengthen operational research to support scale up based upon evidence and understanding. There would be a very important role of technical support and implementation research for identifying operational questions and then seeking answers in a scientific way through operational and implementation research. Dept. of Health Research (DHR) and National Knowledge Platform (NKP) as proposed under NHM can play an important role in the process. The emerging policy questions with possible need for operational research need to be a focus. There is a role of evidence, implementation research and capacity building in the process. The institutional mechanisms at both national and sub-national level, with sufficient government funding to support implementation research would be needed. Such platforms should bring policy makers, academic researchers and program managers and all other stakeholders together.