BGU Professor Leading Health Policy Research in Israel
BGU Professor Leading Health Policy Research in Israel
December 16, 2025
Prof. Moriah Ellen of BGU’s Department of Health Policy and Management.
The Jerusalem Post—Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) is advancing research that challenges long-held assumptions about how healthcare systems function in practice. Prof. Moriah Ellen of BGU’s Department of Health Policy and Management captures this challenge succinctly: “We know the research. We know what works. The question is, how do we get it done?” Her work, as highlighted by The Jerusalem Post, points to a critical truth—that much of what could improve healthcare already exists but remains unused.
At BGU, Prof. Ellen leads the Israel Implementation Science and Policy Engagement Centre (IS-PEC), where the focus moves from discovery to execution. “I don’t test whether something works,” she explains. “I test how to make it work in real life, and real life is messy.” Her research examines why evidence so often stalls after it is produced, confronting the policy constraints, institutional structures, and human factors that determine whether research translates into practice.
She often uses the role of nurse practitioners to illustrate this gap between evidence and action. “The evidence is unequivocal,” Prof. Ellen says. “Nurse practitioners provide excellent care. They are efficient, they improve patient outcomes, and they’re not just ‘doctor substitutes.’” Yet approval alone is not enough. “Then implementation hits,” she notes, bringing challenges tied to “organizational culture, professional anxieties, resource bottlenecks, ego, [and] habit. Evidence doesn’t automatically survive contact with the real world.”
Implementation science in the health policy research field is still an emerging discipline in Israel, and Prof. Ellen is actively helping to shape its growth. “There are three of us in the country,” she explains, which led her to establish a national collaborative forum through IS-PEC. Her work reflects the highly collegial environment at BGU. “People genuinely want to help,” she says. “My department feels like a big family.” At the core of her work is a clear purpose: “Our role is to make sure academic research is implemented,” bridging “the gap between knowing and doing.”
Read more on The Jerusalem Post>
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