Steering group

The ARCA steering group is closely involved in the design, content and performing of the research and regularly advices the main research team on its progress. They constitute of experienced researchers from the Amsterdam Academic community. In alphabetic order, the steering group involves:

Gerben ter Riet MD PhD is a clinical epidemiologist with a keen interest in the intersection of research integrity and methodology. He is a principal investigator (PI) at the University Hospital of the University of Amsterdam (AMC-UvA). His main interests are transparent reporting and linguistic hedging, P-value bashing, reproducibility, publication bias in animal research, and better monitoring of research proposals on their path to publication. He co-authored the Dutch research program on Fostering Responsible Research Practices. He also serves as a methodologist in the AMC medical ethics committee and is active as a methods and statistics consultant to the AMC departments of geriatrics and cardiology.

Yvo Smulders is a general internist and director of the Internal Medicine residency program at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. In addition, he is deputy chief editor of the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde. His specific background is in Nephrology and Vascular Medicine. He has served on several guideline writing committees and has published many research papers, mainly in the field of vascular disease and diabetes mellitus. In addition, his interest and scientific output encompasses many more general subjects, including medical ethics, research culture, etc.

René van Woudenberg:  “I am a professor of philosophy. My areas of specialisation are epistemology and metaphysics. I did my Ph.D. with Nicholas Wolterstorff (who was at the time at Yale University), am the recipient of an Academy Research Grant (from KNAW), worked for two years at the University of Notre Dame, and was the dean of the philosophy department at VU University from Sept. 2008 through December 2012. I am greatly interested in how ordinary knowledge relates to scientific knowledge, and in how our common sense view of the world relates to the scientific image of the world. The “Science Beyond Scientism” squares perfectly with this interest, as does the Abraham Kuyper Center for Science and the Big Questions.”

Hanneke de Haes worked as a psychologist in oncology in Academic hospitals in Rotterdam, Leiden and Amsterdam. She graduated at Leiden University (1988) and became full professor and chair in the Department of Medical of Psychology in the University of Amsterdam Academic Medical Centre in 1995. Her research on quality of life, (cost-) effectiveness of medical interventions, medical decision making, and medical communication is presented in over 250 peer reviewed papers. She was chair of committee developing the first medical faculty research code in the Netherlands. She now serves as scientific integrity counsellor at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam.

F.J. Oort is full professor of Methods and Statistics, director of the Research Institute of Child Development and Education, director of Research Priority Area Yield, and program director of the Research Master Child Development and Education.

Guy Widdershoven is professor of Medical Philosophy and Ethics at Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc, Amsterdam. He is senior researcher in the Amsterdam Public Health (APH) research institute. His research focusses on hermeneutic ethics and moral case deliberation. This method for discussing moral dilemmas in professional practice is applied in chronic care (elderly care, psychiatry, care for people with an intellectual disability, and care at the end-of-life. The method of moral case deliberation is also used for issues regarding research integrity, by fostering reflection of PhD students and senior researchers on dilemmas experienced in their research practice. This is disseminated on a European level, for instance through the recently acquired Horizon 2020 project EnTIRE (Mapping normative framework for EThics and Integrity of REsearch).    In the medical school, he teaches on medical philosophy and ethics. He coordinates the teaching of the Academic Core (research methods, applying research in medical practice, reflection on research). He also teaches in the master program Philosophy, Bioethics and Health. Together with Johan Legemaate, he recently edited a Dutch handbook on Ethics and Law in Healthcare (Boom, 2016).