With a rising demand for care and increasing costs, the Dutch health care faces a shortage of resources. Decision-makers in policy and practice need to carefully weigh the benefits of interventions against costs. Efficiency Studies provide the evidence base to make decisions about the introduction of innovative interventions while discouraging the use of inefficient interventions. Efficiency studies is a collaborative effort of patients, researchers, practitioners and policymakers.
Efficiency in health care is studied by comparing two different treatments on the basis of results and costs. ZonMw supports this kind of research through subsidies. But how do efficiency studies work?
In the beginning of 2021, the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) launched eight different studies on the effects of COVID-19 vaccinations in immune compromised patients. Various knowledge partners are currently working in consortia on these studies. To ensure fast and effective implementation of the research results, ZonMw is working together with the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment...
24 researchers who have recently received their PhDs can do their research at foreign research institutes thanks to a Rubicon grant from NWO. The Rubicon programme gives young, highly promising researchers the opportunity to gain international research experience.
In 2020, 85% of the publications resulting from NWO funded research were Open Access. For ZonMw, this percentage is 83%. These are the findings from the biennial Open Access Monitor carried out by CWTS at the request from NWO. NWO and ZonMw are strongly committed to the transition to Open Science. Since the introduction of NWO's Open access policy in 2009, great progress has been made.
While the pharmaceutical, medical technologies, chemical, cosmetics and food industries are increasingly seeking solutions to improve, for example, their prediction of clinical efficacy and/or risk and safety assessments without the use of animals, the solutions are still insufficient;
Societal demand for animal-free testing is increasing and there is a need for new innovations to improve human health, a stimulation of this research field is therefore needed.
The ZonMw Open Competition programme focuses on free and fundamental research on health care and innovation. Innovative and synergistic collaborations between research groups and science with an impact on science and/or society are central to this programme.
