 The Western Cape HPSR Journal Club, JC, is a unique initiative that brings together health system managers and academics to discuss complex systems and social science perspectives on health system development. Through this process, trusting relationships have been established between participants, leading to organizational impacts at both the meso and macro levels. These impacts have been enabled by the context of the JC, the design of the JC which encourages mutual learning and translation of new ideas into practice, and the motivation of participants to work towards health system development for social justice. This article was authored by the Western Cape HPSR Journal Club team.