Organization and quality control
EMGO+ is one of five research institutes in the Vumc. The daily responsibility for and management of EMGO+are delegated to the scientific interim director, Prof. Willem van Mechelen who is supported by a vice-director, Prof. Pim Cuijpers, and a manager, Monique Zweers, MSc.
- An external advisory board that monitors progress in implementing the research policy and offers guidance in matters concerning EMGO+’s organization and management.
- The science committee, consisting of senior investigators, which advises the directorate on matters concerning new research proposals and research policy. New projects must comply with EMGO+’s mission statement, fit into one of the four programs, demonstrate good methodological quality, use a health outcome as the primary dependent variable, lead to applicable results, and have an adequate budget.
- EMGO+’s quality committee advises the directorate on matters concerning the quality of the primary process of conducting research. In principle, this consists of performing audits and formulating practical guidelines for research. The committee also seeks opportunities for quality improvement. All guidelines are available in a regularly updated quality handbook.
- The PhD committee consists of four senior investigators and one PhD student. Its task is to advise the directorate on matters concerning the education, supervision, and assessment of PhD students. The PhD committee works in close collaboration with the CaRe training committee. The education committee is responsible for the Post-initial Epidemiology Programme in which many of EMGO+’s PhD students and junior investigators participate.
EMGO+ has four research programmes: 1) Lifestyle, Overweight and Diabetes, 2) Mental Health 3) Quality of Care, and 4) Musculoskeletal Health. Within each programme, regular meetings are organized to discuss new study proposals, preliminary results, methodological and practical problems, and new developments in that particular field of research. An important task for the programme coordinators is to maintain and further optimize the quality and quantity of the output of their programme. Furthermore, they participate actively in the development and implementation of EMGO+’s research policy. Each research project is embedded within one of these programs and led by a senior investigator, while a tenured professor is responsible for the scientific content, the project management, and the dissertation expected if a PhD student or a junior investigator is involved. All projects receive statistical and methodological support from senior members of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Similarly, all projects can avail themselves of assistance with the design and execution of data management.
