National health research systems in Latin America: a 14-country review*

perts who participated in the First Latin American Conference on Research and Innovation for Health held in April 2008, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The review also includes sources cited in the reports, published scientific papers, and expert opinion, as well as regional secondary sources. Six countries reported having formal entities for health research governance and man-agement: Brazil and Costa Rica’s entities are led by their ministries of health; while Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, and Venezuela have entities shared by their ministries of health and ministrie