ReseaRch Quality assuRance foR the futuRe a ... - Lund University

Panel 11 – medicine | health sciences
communication and collaboration between the different disciplines
and research areas. The decision of the county Region Skåne to create a
Regional Geriatric Centre and a Primary Health Centre will strengthen
the preconditions for translational and clinical research. The establishment
of an institutional board from January 1, 2008 facilitates decision
making related to initiatives aimed at strengthening the research infrastructure,
and is seen by the Panel as an excellent initiative.
The ongoing generation shift creates a substantial challenge to the sustainability
of the attained research strength, and the low number of senior
researchers in many research areas is also of concern to the Panel. However
this situation provides an ideal opportunity for further reorganization
of research work into more streamlined groups and concentration of
research into fewer foci, which from an outsiders´ perspective, is needed.
3. Research quality
In summarizing the Panels´s observations it has become very clear that
the research carried out in the Department of Health Sciences has already
contributed and has great potential to contribute in the future at the
national and international level to the advancement of knowledge and its
application into social practice in its research fields. This is demonstrated
by the theoretically and methodologically solid level of research in several
areas and by the many examples of successful translational research.
The evaluations of the different research areas revealed great variability
and therefore the gradings range from poor to very good or approaching
excellent in several research areas, indicating research of high quality
which attracts significant national and also international attention.
Therefore it is difficult to generalize the grading of research quality for the
department as a whole. The productivity of the research is at a high level
when related to the number of staff in different research areas or when
compared with corresponding institutes in Sweden or in other countries.
The Panel observed many innovative approaches regarding the development
of new research cultures on an interdisciplinary basis.
3.1 Health care of women and children
This research area ranges from preterm birth and illness in childhood to
studies with adults who became ill when they were children.
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