Site-visit External Review Committee
Last Wednesday and Thursday, an international independent External Review Committee has visited CAPHRI. We are looking back at a positive site visit with a few preliminary key messages, which we would like to share.
Quality of Research
The committee has judged the quality of the research as ‘very good’. This is related to the impressive amount of output, grants, and PhD students, as well as a very strong PhD Program. The committee suggested that there were many pearls in our expertise, which did not shine through sufficiently. The committee will probably advise working on the visibility of CAPHRI. One way to do this was through a more coherent conceptual and methodological framework, which they presented during the preliminary conclusions.
Regarding Open Science, Academic culture, Scientific Integrity, and Social safety, the committee concluded that the structures are in place, they however need to get more into the culture of the CAPHRI community.
Societal relevance
The committee congratulated CAPHRI on this aspect and mentioned that “this is what CAPHRI is about” as this is part of CAPHRI’s identity. CAPHRI has an impressive amount of projects with great societal impact. The societal relevance is clearly large, especially in the region. CAPHRI truly tries to make an impact on people's lives through for instance the living labs, some of which are already very old, which shows that CAPHRI was at the forefront of this movement. The committee concluded that CAPHRI should build further on this and seize opportunities.
Viability
CAPHRI has shown a lot of resilience and we should be more confident about our resilience. Although the committee sees that there might be concerns about what will be coming our way in the coming years, they are confident that CAPHRI is viable enough to withstand any possible threats. Furthermore, CAPHRI should strategize and make scenarios on how to seize opportunities.
Overall message
We thank the External Review Committee for their hard work and critical questions, which led to new discussions on how to move forward in the coming years. We look forward to their report in early 2024.
Regarding the overall message, the committee concluded that the heart was clear: enthusiastic, motivated, and committed CAPHRI researchers with a strong commitment to a better health for all.
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