QUEST Seminar on Responsible Research

Tuesday, November 11, 2025: Strengthening Confidence in Drug Approval - The Role of Evidence, Openness and Digital Tools
Hosted by the QUEST Research Group Strech

• Clinical trials and regulatory decisions form the backbone of evidence-based medicine, yet much of this information remains fragmented or inaccessible. This talk explores evidence gaps in the drug approval process in the United States and Europe, highlighting why regulatory evidence is essential for public health. It further examines how principles of Open Science, supported by digital tools and open data, can help overcome these gaps.
  Speaker: Max Siebert, Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School
  Find the presentation here. 

Tuesday, May 6th, 2025: Creating the Data Citation Corpus and applying it to determine the impact of shared data

• Talk by our invited guest Iratxe Puebla, Director of Make Data Count | DataCite, together with Evgeny Bobrov and Avihay Cohen, from the QUEST Team Open Data and Research Data Management. 
  In this presentation, Iratxe will first introduce the Data Citation Corpus (DCC) and how DataCite and the Make Data Count initiative created it. Subsequently, Avihay will explain the technical approach to matching the DCC with dataset publications from the Charité. Lastly, Evgeny will present the observations made regarding the impact of datasets shared by Charité researchers.

Tuesday June 3, 2025: Research quality - What are we actually talking about?

• Since The Lancet's 2014 Increasing Value, Reducing Waste article series, it has become clear that biomedical research must significantly improve its quality to generate societal value. Despite widespread recognition of its importance and growing interest in policy and evaluation, the biomedical research community has not yet clearly defined the concept of research quality to develop a shared understanding and overcome ongoing debates and criticism of current research assessment practices.
  In the scope of the Navigate project at BIH QUEST Center, we aim to make quality-oriented research practices more concrete by developing a self-evaluation tool aligned with QUEST-program-related responsible research practices. Preliminary findings will be presented and discussed during the seminar.
  Presentation by Christiane Wetzel from the QUEST Monitoring & Evaluation Unit 

Tuesday July 8, 2025: Introduction to Lab²: A MetaLab for Better Science

• The replicability crisis highlights the need for more transparent and robust research practices. Lab² (Lab-Square) is a collaborative initiative using meta-scientific approaches to improve research credibility. Through large-scale projects we assess the generalizability of findings across populations, methods and analytical approaches. 
  Lab² also investigates how research decisions are made, examining the role of beliefs, biases and norms in shaping scientific practices. 
  This talk will introduce Lab²'s approach, ongoing projects and its role in fostering transparency, reducing publication bias and strengthening the reliability of scientific findings. 
  Invited guest: Levent Neyse, General Coordinator of Lab Square, based at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), and Head of the German Socio-Economic Panel's Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS), based at the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
  Moderated by Ulf Tölch, Leader of the Research Group Systemic perspectives in translational medicine at the BIH QUEST Center
  Further information on Lab-Square here.

October 22^nd, 2024: From Data Hoarders to Data Heroes: Addressing Waste and Fraud in Research

• Individuals volunteer for health research with the hope of advancing medical science and enhancing human health. However, their contributions often get 'lost' in the research pipeline, failing to inform new treatments, clinical guidelines, policies, or clinical practice. This talk explores the current landscape of clinical trials, highlighting how transparency and data sharing can mitigate research waste and integrity issues. It outlines strategies and current progress on the path toward more impactful and usable clinical trials.
  By Lene Seidler, University of Sydney, Australia, and QUEST Junior Visiting Fellow
   

November 19^th, 2024: From theory to practice - Implementing best practice in research assessment systems through infrastructure

• By Miriam Kip, QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Leader of the Research Group Incentives and Responsible Research Assessment
  In this seminar, Miriam will explore current proposals and initiatives of research assessment reforms. On the basis of real world examples, she will introduce the audience to common challenges and opportunities of quality-oriented research assessment reforms. The seminar will pay special attention to the role of the administration, science management and institutional governance and to discuss with the audience pathways for influence. 
   

January 14^th, 2025: Drawing from Implementation Science from Bench to Bedside to Practice

• Implementation science is the study of how best to support ensuring that research findings are taken up into routine practice, striving to develop a generalizable empirical basis and practical methodological approaches to improve the healthcare that patients and the public receive. In this seminar, Justin will explore foundational perspectives in implementation science and discuss the potential for drawing upon implementation science and its tools for implementing practices from the bench to the bedside.
  By Justin Presseau, Director of the Methodological and Implementation Research program and Centre for Implementation Research at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada, and Associate Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa.
  Find the presentation here. 

May 21st, 2024: It's a Product Story - How Validation Drives Best Practices in Medical AI Development

• Validation in medical AI development is crucial. Yet, the journey from basic research and development to a finished product is intricate and fraught with challenges. In this seminar, David Higgins, an expert in medical AI development, highlights the critical role of validation in shaping robust best practices throughout the medical AI development pipeline. Join us as we explore how rigorous validation not only ensures the reliability and safety of AI applications but also retroactively enhances R&D processes.
  Key Themes will be a) validation: understanding its pivotal role in confirming the efficacy and safety of medical AI products, b) best practices: How validation informs and shapes practices across the development lifecycle, and c) robustness: techniques and strategies to enhance the stability and performance of AI systems in diverse medical settings.

   

June 18th, 2024: A theory and typology of moral inefficiencies in drug development

• The task of drug development is to create opportunities for future patients by developing treatments for their afflictions. However, this process requires that animals and human patients give something up- in particular some of their welfare and labour- for medical research. In this talk, I begin by introducing the concept of moral efficiency- briefly- the relationship between what animals and patients give up for research, and the value of what research achieves for future patients. I also offer a theoretical model of how the process of drug development works. I then bring these two analyses together to uncover common sources of moral inefficiency in the way current research systems develop new drugs. I close by very briefly discussing some of the practice and policy measures that might be employed for addressing these moral inefficiencies.
   By Jonathan Kimmelman, STREAM Research Group, Dept. of Equity, Ethics and Policy, School of Population and Global Health, McGill University Montreal, Canada  
  Find the presentation here. 
   

July 16th, 2024: Taking an Evidence-Based and Inclusive Approach to Setting Priorities in Research in Our Research Group

• Speaker: Prof. Mona Nasser, Director of the Institute of Health and Care research, University of Plymouth
  Mona has been working for the last 15 years on methods to set priorities for research and allocate research funding. She has studied how organizations approach these processes and integrate stakeholder engagement, research priority setting, and evidence-based approaches into their operations. In this talk, she will summarize the research that she has conducted up to now and her efforts to integrate these processes within her own research group and her role as Director of the Institute of Health and Care Research.
  Host: CAMARADES group at the BIH QUEST Center
  Find the presentation here. 

October 10th, 2023: Duplicate Images in Scientific Literature - Systematic Review as a Detection Tool for the Online Sleut

• Duplications in scientific images, maybe you have heard about it through leading experts such as Dr. Elisabeth Bik, or seen examples of image manipulation on X (Twitter) or Pubpeer. However, the chance that you have identified them yourself may be low, as it can be a difficult and very time-consuming process. How do duplicate images impact our use of scientific publications, in particular for evidence syntheses such as systematic reviews? In this presentation Kim Wever and René Aquarius (Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) will talk about their experiences with finding duplicate images in scientific literature: from detection, to reporting (and the follow-up so far).

November 7th, 2023: Fireside chat - Addressing global power asymmetries in/through Responsible Research

• Scholars based in the Global South have long been pointing out that the global research system is characterised by globally unequal conditions in terms of access to resources, conference participation, and recognition. Calls for the decolonisation of knowledge production also address the field of health research. Taking up these calls, we will raise the issue of including a global dimension into conceptions of Responsible Research and introduce a critical vision of the power asymmetries that shape implementation processes.
  Organised by the Latin American Research and Teaching Organisation MetaDocencia and the BIH QUEST Project Team Evaluation. Session led by Laura Ación, MetaDocencia’s Executive Co-Director, and assisted by three facilitators and MetaDocencia’s members, with the presence of three panelists from the Global South: Muneera A. Rasheed (Pakistan), Karina Formoso (Argentina) and L. Paloma Rojas-Saunero (Bolivia).
  Please find a recording here.

December 5th, 2023: Open Monitoring of Open Science in France

• Since 2018, France's public policy on open science benefits from a data oriented, country-wide and factual monitoring tool, the French Open Science Monitor (https://frenchopensciencemonitor.esr.gouv.fr/). This national monitor can be further adapted to geographical, organizational and research domains to follow more focused activity, with a range of customization tools available to individual institutions.
  Initially focusing on open access to publications, the French Monitor has been extended over time to cover more comprehensively Open Science, including in particular the transparency of clinical trials and the sharing of software and research datasets.
  The French monitor entirely relies on open and public data, enriched by machine learning techniques and feedback from its users. It provides an open service to the higher education and research community in France.
  Introduction by Evgeny Bobrov, QUEST Center for Responsible Research. Talk by Eric Jeangirard, French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, French Open Science Monitor, and Patrice Lopez, science-miner
  Please find the recordings here: Intro and presentation.

February 13th, 2024: Active engagement of patients in health research – examples from the BIH QUEST Center and Charité

• Following a brief introduction to Patient & Stakeholder Engagement (PSE) and the services provided by QUEST PSE, we will present the Charité research project “MyaLink” that actively engages patients. MyaLink is a telemedical platform for patients with Myasthenia gravis (MG), a rare and potentially life-threating neurological disease that necessitates specialized care. MyaLink enables continuous tracking of MG symptoms using Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) and monitoring of vital signs from home. Health data can be shared with the treating physician and, if needed, patients and specialists can communicate via MyaLink for personalized support. To create a tool that addresses the essential needs of patients, the development of MyaLink entailed a strong partnership with the German Myasthenie Gesellschaft e.V. (patient organization) and the active involvement of patients at every phase. This included a comprehensive study and analysis of the Burden of Disease of MG patients, stakeholder interviews, and an extended pilot phase with MyaLink, projects led by Dr. Sophie Lehnerer and Dr. Maike Stein, supported within the PSE framework. The results of the pilot phase were discussed with patients during a workshop to collaboratively explore further innovative ideas and identify areas and preferences for improvement for the ongoing development.
  Presented by Sarah Weschke, project team leader Patient and Stakeholder Engagement, BIH QUEST Center, Sophie Lehnerer and Maike Stein, Department of Neurology and Experimental Neurology, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
  Presentation Sarah Weschke
  Presentation Sophie Lehnerer

April 25th, 2023: Responsible Supervision from the perspective of the PhD candidate and the supervisor

• Presented by Tamarinde Haven, Researcher at the Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark, When conducted in a manner that emphasizes rigorous and transparent research, supervision can be an important means to socialize PhD candidates into responsible research practices. Yet how is responsible supervision understood from different perspectives, and how do you create an atmosphere of psychological safety where dilemmas and mistakes can be openly discussed? Tamarinde will give an overview of the literature on responsible supervision, highlight some case studies, and closes with some work-in-progress results from recent focus groups with PhD candidates and supervisors from different disciplinary fields. Please follow the link to the presentation.

Link for joining the meeting via Teams: Click here to join the QSRR on April 25th, 2023

May 23rd, 2023: Designing ecosystems to enable a reformed research assessment and recognition of open science

• Presented by Ugo Moschini, Data scientist at the Data Analysis Office, Research Organization Department, Italian Institute of Technology, Italy, The full adoption of a reformed research assessment, as envisioned also by the COalition for Advancing Research Assessment (COARA), that is responsible, transparent and comprehensive, relies on setting up new ecosystems, made of both policies and technologies. The recognition of open science activities needs new tools to monitor open science practices, to raise awareness in both researchers and management staff, enabling transparency. In the talk, some of the aspects and challenges related to the creation of these new ecosystems will be described. Please follow the link for the presentation.
• Additional presentation by Evgeny Bobrov, Project Team Leader Open Data and Research Data Management at the BIH QUEST Center, Evgeny will additionally present a short overview of QUEST activities regarding the monitoring of open science practices. Please follow the link for the presentation.

Link for joining the meeting via Teams: Click here to join the QSRR on May 23rd, 2023

June 20th, 2023: Reproducible Manuscript Writing with Quarto

• Presented by Vladislav Nachev, Data scientist at the BIH QUEST Center, A computationally reproducible analysis in a scientific manuscript ensures through meticulous documentation that any reader can use the same data and code and arrive at the same results that were published in the manuscript. Ideally this should include every numeric result, every figure, and every table. The goal to only publish computationally reproducible manuscripts is seen by many authors as unachievable and as yet another hurdle on their way to publication. However, the adoption of computational reproducibility comes with a great benefit for the authors and this benefit is the automation of repetitive, time-consuming tasks. In this seminar, I will give a short presentation and live demo on using the open-source scientific and technical publishing system Quarto. Please follow the link for the presentation.

Link for joining the meeting via Teams: Click here to join the QSRR on June 20th, 2023

October 25th, 2022: Patient & Stakeholder Engagement (PSE)

• By Sarah Weschke, Project team leader PSE
  Sarah will give an introduction on PSE and related activities at the BIH QUEST Center. She will explain why it is important for biomedical research projects and why more funders are asking for PSE in their calls. Please follow the link to the presentation
• And by Katarina Braune, Medical doctor at the Medical Children Clinic – Endocrinology and Diabetology
  As former winner of the QUEST PSE Grant, Katarina will share with us her experiences working with implementing PSE. Please follow the link to the presentation

November 8th, 2022: COMPASS Monitoring & Evaluation System at QUEST

• By Christiane Wetzel, Project team leader of the Programme Evaluation
  Christiane will introduce this system for measuring the progress and effects of programmes, projects and activities designed and implemented by the BIH QUEST Center to improve open and responsible research practices in biomedical research at the Charité. Please follow the link to the presentation

December 6th, 2022: SPOKES – Promoting active grassroots involvement of scientists

• By Friederike Kohrs, Project manager of SPOKES
  Friederike will present this initiative that supports early and mid-career researchers who are working to enhance translation or improve research culture and practice in their own research environment and beyond. Please follow the link to the presentation by Friederike Kohrs
• And by Toivo Glatz, former SPOKES fellow
  Toivo will share with us his experiences in the frame of the SPOKES initiative. Together with Jessica Rohmann, Toivo co-founded Peerspectives, providing peer-review training for early career researchers in the biomedical sciences. Here, course participants work with journals and editors to apply and improve their reviewing skills. Please follow the link to the presentation of Toivo Glatz

January 17th, 2023: Lessons learned from teaching a hands-on "Publish my protocol" course

• By Tracey Weissgerber, Research group Leader at QUEST, and by René Bernard, Coordinator Value and Open Science at NeuroCure..
  Tracey and René will present the rationale, implementation and lessons learned from this course, where participants make their research methods more transparent and reproducible by pairing a living protocol with a brief Lab Protocol publication. Additionally, Maren Hülsemann, as a workshop participant will share their impressions from the course. Please follow the link to the presentation by Tracey Weissgerber and René Bernard here

January 31st, 2023: LabCIRS – Error-reporting tool to support a transparent and positive error culture in research laboratories

• By Claudia Kurreck, Leader of Quality Management at the Charité Experimental Neurology 
  Claudia will give us insights into this tool, conceived as one measure within the modular quality assurance system PREMIER. The aim of such an error reporting system is to support the development of a transparent and positive error culture in preclinical research laboratories.
  Please follow the link to the presentation by Claudia Kurreck here
• And with special participation of Dr. Konstanze Grote, from the Quality Management of the Research Facilities for Experimental Medicine at the Charité (FEM)
  Dr. Grote will share with us how LabCIRS was implemented at the FEM and how it is being used there.

February 14th, 2023: CAMARADES – Facility for systematic review and meta-analysis of animal studies

• By Sarah McCann, Research group leader and team leader of CAMARADES Berlin
  Sarah will report about this Facility, which aims to provide methodological support and training to researchers on how to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses of animal data. Systematic reviews provide an overview of the range and quality of existing evidence and can be used to guide decision-making for future research and translation. Sarah will further present an overview of projects and support services offered by the Facility, which aims to provide methodological support and training to researchers on how to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses of animal data.
• And with special participation of Mara Meyer Günderoth, medical student working in the lab of Dr. Tazio Maleitzke from the Center for Musculoskeletal Surgery of the Charité (CMSC)
  Mara will report about her experience of doing a preclinical SR with the support of CAMARADES.
  (Please follow the link to the presentation by Sarah and Mara here)

May 10th, 2022: Who we are and how we support responsible research, Presented by Daniel Strech, Head of research group, Deputy director QUEST Center and Evgeny Bobrov, Project team leader Open Data and Research Data Management, BIH QUEST Center of Responsible Research., Please follow this link.

May 24th, 2022: The winner's curse' or why the reproducibility crisis and publication bias towards positive findings create a vastly distorted picture, Presented by Matthias von Herrath - Center for Autoimmunity and Inflammation, La Jolla Institute for Immunology., Please follow this link. 

June 7th, 2022: PREMIER: a tool for structured quality assurance measures in academic preclinical biomedical research, Presented by Claudia Kurreck - Leader Quality Management, Experimental Neurology, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Please follow this link.

June 21st, 2022: Ten simple rules for good research practice, Presented by: Leonhard Held, Center for Reproducible Science, University of Zurich, Please follow this link.

July 5th, 2022: The Preclinical Research Unit: a hub to provide guidance in preclinical research towards robust evidence and clinical translation, Presented by Natascha Drude - Research fellow, Coordinator Responsible PrecliniX, BIH QUEST Center, Please follow this link.