Bruno Marchal is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Unit of Health Services Management, currently working mainly on strategic management of health care organisations and evaluation of complex issues in health.

After graduating as a medical doctor and obtaining a degree in Tropical Medicine at the ITM, Bruno worked for 6 years in Nyamira District (Kenya) as a medical doctor and hospital director.

He joined the Department of Public Health at the ITM in 2000 after obtaining a Master in Public Health. He held the position of tutor and later of coordinator of the ITM’s Master in Public Health course. Between 2002 and 2005, he was a researcher in the IMMPACT project, focusing on capacity strengthening for research and evidence-based policy in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Indonesia. From 2005 to 2011, he was leading the work packages on Management and on Human Resource Management of REACT, an FP6-INCO programme in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia.

He carried out his doctoral research on the influence of (health workforce) management practices on performance of hospitals in Ghana and Tanzania, using realist evaluation as the main methodology. In 2011, he successfully presented a PhD dissertation on this subject, titled: "Why do some hospitals perform better than others? A realist evaluation."

His current research includes:

• The EU-SICA project FEMHealth, in which he leads the realist evaluation case studies on fee exemption policies in Morocco, Bénin, Burkina Faso and Mali. He is also involved in policy implementation studies of FEMHealth.
• The Défi Jeunes project, in which he is responsible for the theory-driven monitoring and evaluation of the programme with Dominique Dubourg.
• Complexity and the challenges for research, policy making and management.
• PhD projects with a realist or theory-driven component (see, for instance, Prashant et al. 2012, Robert et al. 2012, Nabyonga et al. 2012), and a realist evaluation study of intimate partner violence in Spain.

1. Strategic management of local health systems
   • Decision making processes at district level: application of the accountability for reasonableness framework (FP6 EU Inco Project REACT)
   • The multipolar performance framework
2. Research methodologies for complexity in health care
   • Complexity
   • Realist evaluation and theory-driven evaluation
3. Health systems strengthening
   • The interface between (local) health systems and policies, programmes and global health initiatives
   • The dynamic health system model

• Teaching the topics of Strategic management, Health care organisation performance and Health workforce management in the MPH-Health Systems Management & Policy, ITM.
• Teaching Health workforce management in the Postgraduate Course in Tropical Medicine, ITM.
• Coaching of master and post-graduate students at the ITM.
• Teaching Health systems in the MPH of the Ecole de Hautes Etudes de Santé Publique (Rennes) à Paris.

• Goicolea I, Vives-Cases C, San Sebastian M, Marchal B, Kegels G, Hurtig AK. How do primary health care teams learn to integrate intimate partner violence (IPV) management? A realist evaluation protocol. Implement Sci 2013; 8 (36): 1-11.
• van Olmen J, Marchal B, Van Damme W, Kegels G, Hill PS. Health systems frameworks in their political context: framing divergent agendas. BMC Public Health 2012; 12 (774): 1-13.
• van Olmen J, Criel B, Bhojani U, Marchal B, Van Belle S, Chenge M, Hoerée T, Pirard M, Van Damme W, Kegels G. The health system dynamics framework: the introduction of an analytical model for health system analysis and its application to two case-studies. Health Cult Soc 2012; 2 (1): 2-21.
• Marchal B, Van Belle S, van Olmen J, Hoerée T, Kegels G. Is realist evaluation keeping its promise? A review of published empirical studies in the field of health systems research. Evaluation 2012; 18 (2): 192-212.
• Prashanth NS, Marchal B, Hoerée T, Devadasan N, Macq J, Kegels G, Criel B. How does capacity building of health managers work? A realist evaluation study protocol. BMJ Open 2012; 2 (2): e000882.

Complete list of ITM publications