Launching the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research: Why a new journal? Why now? Why open access?

After the many months of preparation, we are excited that IJHPR is now being launched. We are pleased to have this opportunity to share with you some of our goals for the new journal, along with its rationale and key features.As indicated by our official Aims and Scope statement on the journal's website, the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research (IJHPR) seeks to promote intensive intellectual interactions among scholars and practitioners from Israel and other countries regarding all aspects of health policy, with particular attention to Israel. These include policy-relevant contributions from any country in fields ranging from health services research, public health, health promotion, health economics, health care management, and the ethics, sociology, and political science of health care, so long as these contributions draw implications for health and healthcare policy in Israel. The ultimate aim of these intellectual interactions is to contribute to the development of health policy in Israel and to foster wider communication between health scientists and policy analysts in Israel and their colleagues around the world.To understand the objectives of our journal, readers also need to know a bit about its parent organization. The Israel Journal of Health Policy Research is the official publication of The Israel National Institute for Health Policy and Health Services Research. The Israel National Institute is an independent organization whose activities include promoting and funding health services research as well as organizing various forums for the dissemination of research and discussions of current policy issues. In particular, it is worth noting that the National Institute manages the competitive grants process for allocating the monies set aside for health services research by Israel's National Health Insurance Law (1995). Partly as a result of this set-aside and the competitive process that governs the distribution of funds, Israel has a relatively large a