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 director 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, in total 20-30 senior investigators, PhD students, junior researchers, post-docs and support staff, work closely together on related multidisciplinary research projects. In 2010 CAPHRI has 17 programmes.
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
In addition to research, the School is responsible for training PhD students, junior researchers and providing (research) Master education in the area of public health and primary care. The educational programme for PhD students can be found on this website under PhD students/Practical information. CAPHRI directs several high-quality Masters programmes, among which a two-year NVAO accredited Health Sciences Research Master (HSRM) for top-level students, which offers a broad orientated scientific training course, which prepares for a PhD trajectory or research-orientated positions. Currently, CAPHRI is responsible for the following Master Programmes:
- Health Sciences Research Master (two-year programme);
- MSc European Public Health;
- MSc Global Health;
- MSc Public Health, with the following stand-alone one-year Master programmes:
a) Health Education and Promotion
b) Epidemiology
c) Health Policy, Innovation & Management.
The school council consists of:
- the scientific director
- the three cluster coordinators
- the programme leaders of the School
The Council, invited or uninvited, is entitled to call the scientific director's 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 director. The Advisory Council has 6 external experts as members, including the chair.
Participating departments
Altogether 10 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:
- General Practice
- Epidemiology
- Methodology and Statistics
- International Health
- Health Promotion
- Health Services Research (consisting of the former departments Health Organisation, Policy and Economics and Nursing and Care)
- Orthopeadic Surgery
- Rehabilitation
- Social Medicine
- Health, Ethics and Society