End-of-Life Care Research Group
Welcome to the website of the End-of-Life Care Research Group, an Alliance between the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ghent University. The Alliance research group strives to establish an extensive interdisciplinary and interuniversity collaboration that benefits the quality of scientific research in the domain of end-of-life care, palliative and supportive care, and medical end-of-life decision making.
Mission statement
The End-of-Life Care Research Group aims to conduct high-quality scientific research in end-of-life care in Belgium and Europe. Researchers with different scientific backgrounds work in a common structure to facilitate interdisciplinary collaborative research. The research group is spearheaded by a number of experienced researchers and strives to optimise training and support of junior researchers in order to expand expertise in end-of-life care research.
The research group also aims to achieve maximum dissemination of research findings through scientific publication, conferences, professional organisations and popular media. In doing so, research at the End-of-Life Research Group is applied for societal feedback and improvement of medical training and education, of end-of-life care practice and organisation, and of political and institutional policy.
What we do
The End-of-Life Care Research Group is comprised of more than 30 staff members with scientific backgrounds in sociology, health sciences, psychology, ethics, medicine and nursing. Most research at the End-of-Life Care Research Group can be characterised as public health research, health services research or clinical research. In most of the current studies, the research group is collaborating with other research groups and institutes, both within and beyond universities. Furthermore, the research group also has intensive international collaborations, mainly with research groups in Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and USA.
Research in the EOLC research group is coordinated within three main research programs, each managed by at least two post doctoral research fellows and one program chair.
- Public Health
Chaired by Prof Joachim Cohen
Aimed at describing and understanding the circumstances and the quality of dying and its determinants from a population perspective (ie applying a public health research perspective to end-of-life care)
- Non-cancer care, dementia, long term care
Chaired by Prof Lieve Van den Block
Aimed at acquiring the necessary insights to improve the quality of palliative care for non-cancer patients and older people and understand the mechanisms to improve end-of-life care in long-term care facilities
- Cancer care
Chaired by Dr Koen Pardon
Aimed at acquiring the necessary insights to improve the quality of palliative care for cancer patients and understand the mechanisms of integration of palliative care into mainstream oncology treatment.
The group is led by director Prof. dr. Luc Deliens and co-director Prof. dr. Freddy Mortier, and dr. Kenneth Chambaere (research) and dr. Koen Meeussen (science communication) are the group's coordinators.
How are we structurally embedded?
- On a national level, the End-of-Life Care Research Group is part of The Oncology Research Centre (ORC), and of the Bioethics Institute Ghent (BIG).
- On an international level, the End-of-Life Care Research Group is embedded within the International Collaborative for End-of-Life Care Research (ICER), the European Association for Palliative Care Research Network (EAPC RN), and the European Palliative Care Research Centre (PRC).
All staff members