The organisation and managerial structure supports high quality research and education. There is a bottom-up structure in which research is organized by emphasizing the natural research unit: the research programme. The scientific output and the management of all programmes are evaluated every year by the directors of the School through planning and control sessions. The number of programmes is flexible, new promising programmes may start and existing programmes may be stopped if they are not scientifically successful.
The School’s research is organized in research programmes. A research programme is a coherent group of research projects, supervised by a team of senior researchers. By organizing the research bottom up successful researchers are stimulated to develop their research ideas for which they feel responsible. Once appointed as programme leaders they are responsible for the performance and management of these research ideas as implemented in the research programmes. The strength of the programme-structure is that it stimulates cooperation between researchers on a daily basis and enables a continuous exchange of expertise and mutual support in developing project proposals, performing project research and educating and monitoring the progress of young researchers as well as scouting research talent. In each programme, 5-10 senior investigators, PhD students, junior researchers, post-docs and support staff, work closely together on related multidisciplinary research projects.
Research programmes that are closely related in terms of subject matter, conceptual framework, study population, type of intervention or research methodology are grouped together in three clusters:
- Primary Care
- Innovation of Care
- Public Health
By grouping the programmes in clusters, the main areas of research of the School become visible. Each cluster has a cluster coordinator.
Programme coordination of PhD training and Master education
The school is responsible for education and training of its PhD students. Students can attend courses within the CaRe research school, or at FHML level. The School directs a two-year NVAO accredited Health Sciences Research Master (HSRM) for top-level students, which offers a broad orientated scientific training course for future researchers, and prepares for a PhD education or research-orientated positions. The School is responsible for the content of the following public health master programmes:
a) Epidemiology
b) Health Education and Promotion
c) Health Policy, Economics and Management
d) Health Services Innovation
e) Work and Health
The school council consists of:
- the scientific director and co-director
- the three cluster coordinators
- the programme leaders of the Master programmes of the School
- the heads of the departments in the School
The Council, invited or uninvited, is entitled to call the scientific directors’ attention to matters which are of direct importance to the School and give advise on it.
The School’s Advisory Council gives advice, whether requested or of its own account, on research policy, both from a content and an organizational point of view. The Council acts as a sounding board for the directors and for units of the institute. The Advisory Council has 6 external experts as members, including the chair.
Participating departments
Altogether 11 departments of the Faculty of Health Medicine and Lifesciences and the Academic Hospital Maastricht are preferentially labelled to CAPHRI. Participating Departments in the School for Public Health and Primary Care: CAPHRI are:
- Health Organisation, Policy and Economics
- Epidemiology
- Methodology and Statistics
- International Health
- Health Education and Health Promotion
- General Practice
- Orthopeadic Surgery
- Rehabilitation
- Social Medicine
- Health, Ethics and Society
- Nursing and Care