Research

Health and disease increasingly demand an integrated approach, ‘integrated care’. Next to disease and defect, health and health risks are central to the research of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences (FHML). Future health care is not only about patients but also targeted at people who are at risk to develop certain diseases. Hence, the entire continuum from health to disease is taken into account. This integrated approach of health care is characteristic to the research and education of FHML.

The multidisciplinary research of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences focuses on a set of themes or research programmes, that are conducted in close collaboration with Maastricht UMC+ (MUMC+) and the Faculty of Psychology and Neurosciences. The research programmes are embedded in six Schools and two institutes, M4I and MERLN.

Valorisation and knowledge transfer

Valorisation is the process of creating value from knowledge, by making this knowledge available and suitable for economic and social exploitation and to translate this knowledge into products, services, processes and new business.

Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus supports researchers and clinicians in the complex process of valorisation. Their mission is to transform cutting edge knowledge into products and services that benefit society and public health. Contact them at info.maastricht@brightlands.com to take the first step towards transforming your knowledge into products, processes and services that make our society healthier and more sustainable.

Research for Education

The Institute for Education of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences focuses on research for education. This is especially the case for the Department of Educational Development & Research  . As laid down in the strategic programme, FHML aims to provide top-level education. High quality educational programmes require a dynamic and continuous process of educational evaluation and innovation. Research for Education is a R&D programme that supports and enables educational development. The programme has two central themes: ‘learning in innovative learning arrangements’, and ‘assessment and evaluation’. In both domains, educational researchers seek scientific evidence for new learning and assessment methods.

In order to achieve the societal ideal of ‘lifelong learning’, the focus of the research programme will increasingly shift from ‘inside-school learning’ to ‘outside-of-school learning’. Not only participation in high-end research in this domain but also the link between educational research and practice will be furthered. The aim is to counteract the often-heard criticism that research for education fails to impact on educational practices and on the educators. With its research for education the faculty will further strengthen its (intern)national research profile.

Research collaboration and partnerships

FHML and MUMC+ collaborate closely with the other Dutch university medical centres (teaching hospitals) on the so-called Parelsnoer  (the String of Pearls Initiative).