Incisional hernias remain one of the most common surgical complications with a longterm incidence of 10-20%. 1 With the move to the tension-free repair following the introduction of the meshes, results improved, with a slight decrease in the rate of recurrence to approximately 10%. 2 Within recent decades, the sublay prosthetic hernioplasty, which was introduced in the 1970 by the French surgeons Stoppa and Rives, became one of the widely accepted procedures for incisional hernia repair. 3 This technique is basically characterized by mesh implantation in the "sublay"position below the rectus muscle and fixation of the mesh by transfascial sutures at the edges of the mesh. 4

BackgroundMore than half of deaths in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) result from conditions that could be treated with emergency care - an integral component of universal health coverage (UHC) - through timely access to lifesaving interventions.MethodsThe World Health Organization (WHO) aims to extend UHC to a further 1 billion people by 2023, yet evidence supporting improved emergency care coverage is lacking. In this article, we explore four phases of a research prioritisation setting (RPS) exercise conducted by researchers and stakeholders from South Africa, Egypt, Nepal, Jamaica, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Colombia, Ethiopia, Iran, Jordan, Malaysia, South Korea and Phillipines, USA and UK as a key step in gathering evidence required by policy makers and practitioners for the strengthening of emergency care systems in limited-resource settings.ResultsThe RPS proposed seven priority research questions addressing: identification of context-relevant emergency care indicators, barriers to effective emergency care ; accuracy and impact of triage tools; potential quality improvement via registries; characteristics of people seeking emergency care; best practices for staff training and retention; and cost effectiveness of critical care – all within LMICs.Conclusions Convened by WHO and facilitated by the University of Sheffield, the Global Emergency Care Research Network project (GEM-CARN) brought together a coalition of 16 countries to identify research priorities for strengthening emergency care in LMICs. Our article further assesses the quality of the RPS exercise and reviews the current evidence supporting the identified priorities.