This is making research results relevant to everybody
It starts with attention to sex and gender in research
What works for whom in prevention of addiction? How do you motivate people to stick with their treatment? What are signs of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease? The answer to these questions start with research. To make sure the answers are applicable to everyone in our society, you need to take into account multiple perspectives in research. ‘That is easier said than done,’ explains Stroet. ‘We are committed to obtaining knowledge on differences in health and health care between people, for example between men and women. But we see that in many of the research we fund, knowledge is lagging on how to properly take these differences into account in research. With the joint course package on sex and gender in health and research, we show early career researchers why it can lead to skewed results when you don’t account for the biological and sociocultural differences between men and women in research. And we provide them with tools how to do better in their own research.’
Within Erasmus MC and in our teams we have a long tradition of appraising sex and gender differences in our research and in our clinical practice
Providing tools for researchers
‘Within Erasmus MC and in our teams we have a long tradition of appraising sex and gender differences in our research and in our clinical practice,’ explains Maryam Kavousi. As a professor in cardiovascular health, she and internist Jeanine Roeters van Lennep have coordinated the Gender and Health course from the very start. ‘From 2013 we organized a course on women’s health within the NIHES institute of Erasmus MC. The last 5 years we have been able to broaden our scope and join forces with ZonMw. In this joint course package we provide researchers from within and outside of The Netherlands with essential knowledge and skills to take on the challenges of integrating sex and gender in health and health care.’ Roeters van Lennep adds: ‘The course provides participants with tools that help them in developing and strengthening sex and gender sensitive research projects and clinical care. To realize gender equality in health care, the sex and gender dimension needs to be integrated in all aspects of research and clinical practice.’
Each year the Erasmus Summer Programme provides hundreds of students, researchers and health professionals with the opportunity to boost their scientific careers. In the Gender and Health course – coordinated by Erasmus MC – (inter)national experts from a multitude of disciplines including clinical and basic science, public health and policy provide participants with the latest knowledge on the critical health issues for women and men throughout the life cycle.
The Gender in Research workshops are coordinated by ZonMw and are focused on providing early career researchers with the insights and skills to incorporate sex and gender in health research
Early career researchers are the future
The Erasmus Summer Programme has long provided early career researchers with the opportunity to boost their scientific careers. That continues to bear fruit in the rest of their career. And in the careers of others, including international researchers. ‘The wonderful thing is that the Dutch participants are introduced to international collaboration early on in their career. This strengthens the connections and exchange between researchers and their research organizations early on as well,’ according to Kavousi. Stroet adds: ‘Especially when it comes to sex and gender we see that this is important. A concept like gender can differ across different cultural contexts, as it deals with the socioculturally influenced differences between men and women. Through international connections you can learn from each other’s perspective and build a wider range of knowledge and understanding in this area.’
Creating impact with Gender in Research
The Gender in Research workshops always produce something with which health researchers outside of the courses are stimulated to pay better attention to sex and gender in their research as well. Participants in the workshops are divided into groups to work on a group project with this aim throughout the week. One of those groups wins the Gender in Research Award. This award makes it possible for that team to make their idea come to life. That is for example how the platform Genderful Research World was developed. Through this interactive platform, health researchers are guided to relevant resources on how to incorporate sex and gender into their work.
Researcher Emma de Brabander participated in the programme in 2023 and shares the impact the courses had on her and her work: ‘Aside from the more continuous ongoing awareness that I gained from attending the programme, I've been much more active in including sex and gender within my own research. Outside of research, I'm also much more active with the topic than before the programme. Together with a colleague that I met at the 2023 Gender in Research summer courses, I am now part of the early career researchers board of the Dutch society for sex and gender in health research, currently working on monthly newsletters on topics associated with gender and sex in (medical) research.’
International perspective is important: stronger together
The joint course package is international, as all of education at Erasmus MC. The Erasmus Summer Programme attracts hundreds of students, researchers and health professionals from all over the world. The faculty of the programme is made up of world renowned experts in the field of quantitative medical and health research. Education is offered internationally to include the different perspectives and ideas that are essential for dealing with global health issues. Furthermore, it fosters the creation of a worldwide network of contacts and opportunities for collaboration.
Stressing the importance of diversity in research
Professor and head of the Epidemiology department at Erasmus MC Arfan Ikram is long time director of the Erasmus Summer Programme and chair of the board of ZonMw since 2022 as well. He reflects on the five-year anniversary of the joint courses on sex and gender in health and research. ‘A lot of researchers recognize it: Oh, we have to do something with this as well. That is how I thought too. But if you want to make real impact with your research, it is vital to take sex and gender into account pro-actively. That is why the collaboration in this joint course programme is so important: the researchers that still have a long career ahead of them are given the right tools. And at the same time – integrating sex and gender into research has been a requirement of all research we fund at ZonMw for years now. In everything we do, we must highlight that this requirement is important for women and men alike. I was happy to see that in the last edition of the courses there was an increasing number of men participating. The first few years it was only 1 or 2 men, now there were 5 or 6. It is not an earth shattering difference, but it is telling.’
By joining forces with Erasmus MC we can create lasting impact for future projects, making research results relevant to everybody.
Future: collaboration and investing early
The collaboration between ZonMw as an intermediary organization and Erasmus MC as an educational institution is a positive experience. It makes it possible to combine the best of two worlds and boost the scientific community. ‘There are many ways to do that of course’ according to Stroet. ‘But this way you start early in someone’s research career and make an investment in the rest of that career as well. By joining forces with Erasmus MC we can create lasting impact for future projects, making research results relevant to everybody.’