A new chapter for learning health systems
After eight years of connecting research, policy and practice, the Swiss Learning Health System project concluded in 2025. Its legacy continues through the Competence Center for Learning Health Systems, established by the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine to advance knowledge translation and health system improvement.
Enlarge imageEstablished in 2017 with support from the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), the Swiss Learning Health System (SLHS) set out to strengthen dialogue between health services research, policy and practice in Switzerland. Twelve universities and universities of applied sciences joined the project, bringing together expertise from across Switzerland around a shared question: how can scientific evidence and practical experience be jointly used to improve health systems and inform decision-making?
Looking back: eight years of the Swiss Learning Health System
Over the past eight years, the SLHS has established a national research and stakeholder network and explored methods for connecting research with decision-making. Through reviews of the available evidence, policy briefs and stakeholder dialogues, the initiative brought scientific findings into conversation with practical experience and policy considerations. One example is Health2040, which brought together diverse stakeholders to co-create solutions for future primary care in Switzerland. Its action plan became one of the reference points for the national Primary Healthcare Agenda, in which the Federal Office of Public Health and more than 50 organisations developed measures to secure access to high-quality primary care in Switzerland.
A central part of the SLHS was investing in the next generation of researchers in this field. Its doctoral programme trained 51 doctoral researchers to work at the intersection of research, policy and practice, and equipped them with the interdisciplinary skills needed to contribute to health system learning and improvement. In doing so, the project helped build expertise that can continue to strengthen health systems beyond the lifetime of the SLHS itself.
Enlarge imageThe Competence Center for Learning Health Systems
The University of Lucerne helped shape the SLHS from the outset, with the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine hosting its management and coordination office. Building on the expertise and partnerships developed through the SLHS, the Faculty established the Competence Center for Learning Health Systems (CCLHS) as a lasting institutional base for this work. The new centre reflects the faculty’s strategic commitment to knowledge translation and pursues it through its own research, partnerships, and training and education activities.
Its research addresses a central challenge for learning health systems: creating the conditions under which evidence and experience can lead to ongoing learning and improvement. This includes studying the underlying organisational and governance mechanisms, as well as participatory approaches and co-creation to support meaningful involvement of relevant actors. Through training and learning opportunities for researchers, healthcare professionals and decision-makers, the CCLHS also shares practical approaches to using scientific evidence and engaging stakeholders in health system research and improvement.
Professor Stefan Boes, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, sees the centre as serving two purposes: “With the Competence Center for Learning Health Systems, we want to make knowledge translation a shared strength of our faculty. The centre will support researchers in connecting their work with policy and practice, while also advancing our understanding of how co-creation works: in which settings, under which conditions, and with which methods and tools. In this way, knowledge translation becomes both a service to our researchers and an important field of research in its own right.”
Sustaining exchange and looking ahead
The CCLHS will also help sustain exchange among researchers, policymakers and practitioners across Switzerland through its involvement in Smarter Health Care, a national network under the umbrella of the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+). The network brings together communities developed through the SLHS and the National Research Program 74 “Smarter Health Care,” both now concluded, and remains a space for dialogue and collaboration. Within it, the CCLHS’s particular contribution lies in designing and facilitating formats that connect research, policy and practice.
Looking ahead, the CCLHS aims to establish learning health systems as a lasting focus of research, education and knowledge exchange at the faculty – so that research informs practice, and experience from practice continues to shape research.
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