UMC Utrecht Research Evaluation 2013-2018 Table of contents UMC Utrecht research Self-evaluation report 3 Self-evaluation strategic research program Brain 33 Self-evaluation report strategic research program Cancer 82 Self-evaluation report strategic research program Child Health 150 Self-evaluation report strategic research program Circulatory Health 218 Self-evaluation report strategic research program Infection & Immunity 294 Self-evaluation report strategic research program Regenerative Medicine & Stem Cells 352 UMC Utrecht research Self-evaluation report (2013-2018) Foreword 5 1. Mission, strategy & general organisation 6 1.1 Mission 6 1.2 Strategy 2015-2020 ‘Connecting U’ 6 1.3 Executive Board 6 1.4 Supervisory Board 6 1.5 Organisation 7 1.6 Governance developments 7 1.7 Patient and public involvement 7 1.8 Educational Research 8 2. Research organisation & key figures 9 2.1 Strategic research programs 9 2.2 Management and responsibilities 10 2.3 Research FTE 11 2.4 Professorships 11 2.5 Diversity 11 2.6 Funding and earning capacity 12 2.7 Facilities 14 2.8 Partners and collaborations 14 3. Research policy & support 17 3.1 Research Office 17 3.2 Support for innovation and funding 17 3.3 Compliance and quality management of clinical research 18 3.4 Integrity 18 3.5 Data management 19 3.6 Open Science 19 3.7 Benchmark: Research evaluation practices at the UMC Utrecht 20 4. PhD programs: Graduate School of Life Sciences 22 4.1 Recruitment, selection & admission 22 4.2 PhD enrolment 22 4.3 PhD training 23 4.4 Supervision 24 4.5 Governance 24 5. SWOT analysis & future perspectives 26 5.1 Future perspectives 27 Appendix 1. Funding and earning capacity 28 Appendix 2. Funding from European Union 30 4 UMC Utrecht Research Evaluation Foreword The threefold mission of university medical centers in the Netherlands can be hard to pin down. How to combine research, education and healthcare in one organization, while ensuring the quality and impact we strive for? This cannot be achieved by just maintaining and optimizing international excellence in a few selected research areas. Neither are UMC’s just hospitals that deliver ‘last resort’ healthcare. In my view, university medical centers can best be seen as responsive research, education and healthcare organisations that are well-equipped to adapt to the ever changing scientific and healthcare landscape. And I believe the UMC Utrecht is doing a great job at that, as this self-evaluation report shows. For a start, responsiveness means having the freedom to pursue curiosity-driven research to explore new, promising research areas. For example, in the field of organoids we are at the forefront of new discoveries. Some clinical applications, such as targeted treatment of cystic fibrosis patients, have already been developed, but this technology is obviously not yet fully exploited. UMC Utrecht devotes significant research efforts to this field, building on collaborations at Utrecht Science Park, a global hub in the development of stem cell-derived organoids. Another example of a discovery that we are still exploring further, while already being applied in clinical practice, is MRI-guided radiotherapy (MR-Linac). Responsiveness to research developments also implies we identify and capitalize on breakthroughs in other scientific domains. For example, in the coming years we will try to translate the much-anticipated developments in artificial intelligence and data sciences into tangible benefits for biomedical research and healthcare, including prevention. An example of the latter is exposome sciences, a field where scientists from several faculties at Utrecht University closely collaborate. They recently received a Gravity award from the Dutch Research Council. Finally, responsiveness means that our center is in continuous dialogue with stakeholders to align ourselves with societal expectations. This dialogue takes place at many different levels and time scales and involves patient organisations, hospitals, primary care organisations, municipal authorities, research institutes, research funders, health insurers and other stakehol- ders. A recent manifestation is the agreement between UMCs and the minister of Healthcare that UMCs will develop a shared research agenda with regional partners with ample attention to prevention of disease. Of course this doesn’t imply our research should be ‘regional’ in a limitational sense of geography, knowledge and relevance. On the contrary, it recognizes that successful and efficient healthcare innovation requires multidisciplinary collaboration across networks that bring together real-world questions and world-class academic problem-solving capacity. The region seems an appropriate scale for a ‘living lab’, from which valuable, generalizable lessons can be learned. The availability of several successful networks and collaborations in the Utrecht region, such as the Health Hub, the elderly care network NUZO and the primary care network Julius Health Care Centers, will be instrumental in these endeavours. We owe our responsiveness in great part to the curiosity, dedication and ambition of our employees. Every day, researchers, doctors, nurses and others go to great lengths, sometimes in the face of big pressures, to deliver the best possible care today and create the care of tomorrow. The way we organise and evaluate our research also enhances our responsiveness. Our current strategy ‘Connecting U’, aiming for connection with patients and increasing our societal impact, already made that very explicit. One of the major governance changes in the UMC Utrecht has been the formation of six strategic research programs (focus areas) in 2010. These horizontal, division-spanning programs provide the strategic direction for our research efforts. They bring together the different phases of what we call the ‘innovation loop’: basic, translational and clinical/applied, research, with basic knowledge being translated to clinical application and with clinical questions shaping basic research. The strategic research programs have matured steadily in dynamic interaction with our ten divisions and continue to further focus their research efforts to increase their impact. Currently, our strategic research programs are of crucial importance in defining the research topics where the UMC Utrecht wants to make a difference in the next strategic period (2021-2025). In addition, they are in the lead in the process of establishing new (research) chairs. During the past years we also brought our evaluation guidelines in line with our goal of being a responsive research, educa- tion and healthcare organisation, emphasizing the societal impact of research. Science in Transition, a 2013 UMC Utrecht initiative that focuses on the ‘real’ impact of research, certainly changed the way we evaluate our scientists. This is strongly related to very similar policy changes announced this year by Dutch research funders, the association of universities (VSNU) and the Royal Academy of Sciences, recognizing the frontrunning role of UMC Utrecht in research evaluation. We are very much supported by Utrecht University and their support for Open Science and responsible research evaluation. Obviously, there is room for improvement. We critically evaluated the previous SEP report and, for example, took measures to increase our clinical trial activities in our strategic research programs. We have work to do in focusing our research efforts even more and in streamlining research support, which will take center stage in our next strategy. But all in all, I believe the UMC Utrecht is well-equipped and robustly organised to create positive impact in research and healthcare in the Utrecht region, in the Netherlands and in the world. Prof. Arno Hoes Dean and vice-chairman of the executive board, UMC Utrecht 5 UMC Utrecht Research Evaluation 1. Mission, strategy & general organisation 1.1 Mission UMC Utrecht is a leading international university medical center generating, testing, sharing, and applying knowledge on health, illness, and health care for the benefit of patients and society. UMC Utrecht was created in 2000 by merging the Academic Hospital Utrecht (founded 1875), Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital (founded 1888) and the Medical Faculty of Utrecht University (founded 1636). The merger of an academic hospital and the faculty of medicine into a new organisation with a single governance (university medical center) is a typical Dutch development which started around 20 years ago and is internationally unique. UMC Utrecht is, thus, separate from but also closely intertwined with Utrecht University, for example in the development of strategic research programs and in the appointment of professors. Binding agreements about collaboration and responsibilities are defined in a formal cooperation agreement. 1.2 Strategy 2015-2020 ‘Connecting U’ UMC Utrecht launched its “Connecting U” strategy in January 2015. This strategy elaborates on the previous strategic period “3.0” in which UMC Utrecht opted for a selected number of strategic research programs. Connecting U is all about connection: connection with patients, with general practitioners, with researchers, with each other, and connec- tion with society. To achieve its ambitions, UMC Utrecht has formulated the following two strategic objectives: • To further increase its social impact with an emphasis on the strategic research programs • To further strengthen the connection with our patients and other stakeholders (including students, citizens and other healthcare