The Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network (APMEN) is a collaboration of 18 country partners committed to eliminating malaria from within their borders. Over the past 5 years, APMEN has helped to build the knowledge, tools and in-country technical expertise required to attain this goal. At its inaugural meeting in Brisbane in 2009, Plasmodium vivax infections were identified across the region as a common threat to this ambitious programme; the APMEN Vivax Working Group was established to tackle specifically this issue. The Working Group developed a four-stage strategy to identify knowledge gaps, build regional consensus on shared priorities, generate evidence and change practice to optimize malaria elimination activities. This case study describes the issues faced and the solutions found in developing this robust strategic partnership between national programmes and research partners within the Working Group. The success of the approach adopted by the group may facilitate similar applications in other regions seeking to deploy evidence-based policy and practice.