NIVEL research judged to be very good to excellent

An external committee consisting of leading national scientists as well as prominent scientists from abroad assessed NIVEL research in October 2010. The committee praised the productivity and social relevance and judged NIVEL to be excellent on these criteria. Quality and viability were assessed as being very good.

This external assessment takes place every six years. The evaluation is based on the “Standaard Evaluatie Protocol” (Standard Evaluation Protocol), developed by KNAW (The Dutch Royal Academy of Science), VSNU (the Association of Universities in the Netherlands) and NWO (the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) to assess research groups of universities. Special attention was given to NIVEL’s social mission. The evaluation is based on a Self-evaluation by NIVEL. NIVEL research scored 5 for productivity and social relevance, on a scale of 1 to 5. For quality and viability NIVEL scored 4,  on a scale of 1 to 5.

The external committee was chaired by prof. André Knottnerus, chairman WRR (Scientific Council for Government Policy) and professor of general practice Maastricht University, and also consisted of: prof. Pauline Meurs (chairman ZonMw and professor governance in health care Erasmus University), dr. Janneke Hoekstra (director Knowledge and Innovation, Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries), prof. Rob Horne (director Centre for Behavioural Medicine, University of London) and prof. dr. Walter Ricciardi (director Institute of Public Health, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart Rome). During its visit the committee has spoken with researchers, staff and management of NIVEL, a delegation of the supervisory board and representatives of organisations to which research by NIVEL is of concern.

NIVEL director prof. Peter Groenewegen: “This is, again, a very positive result. The committee has given several recommendations to further improve our research. We will certainly benefit from these recommendations. Naturally, we want to maintain this positive result.”