Funding for three interesting APH valorisation and impact projects

At the start of 2022, Amsterdam Public Health (APH) in collaboration with IXA have launched a call for support of valorisation and impact projects within the research institute. This resulted in 23 interesting applications, of which three projects have been awarded a grant of € 2500.- complemented with in-kind support from Innovation Exchange Amsterdam (IXA).

There is an increasing demand from society and governmental institutions for dissemination, valorisation and implementation of scientific knowledge. Academic institutions are expected to deliver high quality research and to make research results more applicable and usable in practice and in society at large. In line with these developments, APH has developed a strategic plan for the coming years in which creating and increasing societal impact and collaboration with external parties such as citizens/patients, healthcare professionals and policy makers is an important spearhead.

To support APH researchers, several initiatives have already been started, including this opencall. The call offers APH researchers and / or research teams the opportunity to take the societal and economic impact of their project or idea a step further through in-cash and in-kind support.

The in-cash support, worth € 2500,- can be used for organizing an event, creating promotional material (flyer/video) or other forms that could increase the impact of their project. The in-kind support consists of support from IXA and can take different forms such as conducting a market exploration or advising on the most appropriate route to impact.

The three projects funded are described below:

@gezondepeutermonden
Peggy van Spreeuwel en Denise Leusink, part of the ACTA Department of Dentistry by Geert van der Heijden.

The national research project Gezonde Peutermonden (Healthy Toddler Mouths) aims to raise awareness of preventive oral care among parents of toddlers. Still 29% of five-year-old children in the Netherlands have tooth decay and 60% of toddlers does not visit the dentist. Through the Instagram account @gezondepeutermonden, the research group wants to spread reliable knowledge about oral care in young children. With the funding from APH, the project group will be able to further develop the content for their platform and make educational materials about oral health more accessible to parents and health professionals.

Ethnographic film in the fight against neglected disease melioidosis
Jelmer Savelkoel, PhD candidate at Center of Experimental and Molecular Medicine, Amsterdam UMC, location AMC.

The purpose of this project is to make a film to raise awareness about the tropical infectious disease melioidosis, which is caused by a soil bacterium. Estimates show that 165,000 cases occur annually worldwide, 89,000 of which are fatal. Treatment consists of a months-long course of antibiotics. Due to the lack of microbiological facilities and disease knowledge, many melioidosis patients go unrecognized. With the film, the project group wants to raise awareness of the impact of this disease among healthcare professionals and policy makers (e.g. WHO).

COVID-19 Trauma in Dutch Nursing homes
Lianne Cremers, Cato Janssen and Kees Boersma, Department of Organization Sciences at VU Amsterdam.

This project focuses on organizational trauma and the adaptive potential of nursing homes during the hot phase of the COVID-19 crisis. Participant observation and interviews are filmed, capturing the life in the nursing home during the pandemic. With the use of visual methods, we hope to contribute to their process of recovery by offering employees and residents the opportunity to share their stories and make their suffering heard. The funding for this project will be spend to set up an impact campaign and get advice about profiling and communicating the film and research.