The mandate of the Alliance emerged from the recommendations of the 1996 WHO Ad Hoc Committee on Health Research, which recognized the role of health research in strengthening health policies and the overall development of health systems. Work towards the Alliance’s mission – to promote the generation and use of health policy and systems research as a means to strengthen the health systems in low- and middle-income countries – historically focused on three areas of work: the generation of policy and systems knowledge, promotion of its use in decision-making to improve the performance of health systems, and strengthening of capacities of researchers and decision-makers to engage in these efforts