Our mission is: Provide better care and support to patients and clients through applied research – thereby promoting their participation opportunities and health. The focus lies on patients and clients receiving healthcare and the professionals who work on improvement.
We initiate and investigate innovations in and with the professional field in close cooperation with the departments providing the study programmes. We specifically work with the future health professionals who study at our institution as well as their teachers. Their involvement improves the quality of education and encourages and teaches future professionals to look critically at practice. Applied research flourishes with questions from practice, practical cooperation - between education, research and practice – and generates practice-relevant results established in a substantiated and responsible manner.
The result: knowledge that works! Knowledge that is inspiring not only for future practitioners during their training but also for active practitioners; knowledge that is relevant for testing and constructing theories; knowledge that contributes to solving problems in practice.
From the perspective of people who often deal with care: Healthcare is not just about care-related topics. It is about participating in society, working, living, learning, activities of daily life (such as dressing, eating or washing), sports and the like.
How do you participate, how can you cope better with health problems? How do you get (more) control over the care process and what can you do to improve your health? The research centre envisions that important gains can still be made in these areas: that professionals could be better equipped, that professionals from different sectors can greatly contribute to improving people’s health and care, and that knowledge about practice changes must be swiftly incorporated in the relevant programmes.
Research Centre Innovations in Care aims to achieve the following goals from 2020 to 2024:
- The research contributes to the development and sharing of new knowledge in the fields of advancing health, improving care and participation opportunities.
- The research contributes to current, socially relevant curricula, the development of students and the professional development of teachers in the field of research and professional practice in relation to the improvement of care and promotion of health and participation opportunities.
- The research contributes to innovation in the professional practices of professionals working in care and welfare.
- With these goals, we aim to 'make a difference' in close cooperation with education, science and practice. These goals are specified and operationalised in the choices we make in research programming.
In light of our vision and mission, we connect research, education, practice and society.
We aim to achieve our goals by stimulating knowledge creation and knowledge circulation between education, professional practice and science, obviously based on practice-oriented research. Our strategy is human-centred and inclusive.
We are open to all contributions and questions from everyone; an inclusive approach. We work together with citizens (whether or not clients or patients), teachers, students and professionals from local, regional and (inter)national organisations, business and knowledge institutions. Where possible, we work with a double bind: we offer cooperation partners the opportunity to commit part-time to the research centre as research practitioners with teaching duties. We explore questions together and look for solutions together. We apply this co-creation approach both at the level of research projects (co-research) and at the level of design assignments (co-design); regardless of the theme or question that arises. Working in multidisciplinary teams allows for making better use of each other's knowledge and achieve real innovation. We strive for innovations that are based on scientific research, that are applicable and implementable in practice, and that answer the questions of citizens, patients and professionals.
The research focuses on the whole human life course: from the unborn child until death. Health issues, diseases and disorders may arise in each of these life-course stages. Within this life course, the research centre has four research themes:
- Integral care
- Healthcare technology
- Self-management, self-direction and participation
- Prevention, health and vitality
Within these research themes, the research centre always works person-centred, with sensitivity to the cultural, social, economic and/or physical context and evidence-based.