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QUEST Center for Responsible Research

QUEST – Quality | Ethics | Open Science | Translation

The QUEST Center strives to increase the value of biomedical research at BIH and beyond.

Text aus einem Lexikon, lesbar ist: QUEST abbr. Quality, Ethics, Open Science

Mission

We aim to overcome the roadblocks of translational medicine to foster innovation that contributes to improved healthcare. To do this, we want to make biomedical research more trustworthy, useful and ethical. We maximize the quality of research at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) by making sure that its results are accessible, reproducible and generalizable and thus have a high value. We want to create an awareness of the need to rethink biomedical research and to initiate a culture change in academic biomedicine.

Background

The QUEST Center was founded in 2017. It conducts research on research (meta research) (see projects) and derives from it offers (see services and courses & workshops) for the scientific community. With this mission, the QUEST Center is unique in Europe. Through its projects and services, the QUEST Center also examines the role of an academic institution in enhancing the trustworthiness, usefulness, and ethical accountability of biomedical research.

Governance

Following the retirement of founding director Ulrich Dirnagl in 2025, we have established a new organizational structure at the QUEST Center. Its aim is to make our internal processes more participatory and transparent for all QUEST members. To this end, we have elected a five-member body – the Steering Board – which collectively makes strategic decisions and steers and coordinates the Center’s long-term planning. The current members, Ulf Tölch, Sarah McCann, Evgeny Bobrov, Natascha Drude and Anja Blessing, have been elected for a two-year term. 

Within the Steering Board, Ulf Tölch serves as Spokesperson, while Sarah McCann holds the role of Deputy Spokesperson. 

In addition, we have established the QUEST Council, comprising all group, team and unit heads of the QUEST Center, as well as two elected representatives of QUEST staff. Council members actively contribute to strategy development and the building of collaborations and ensure that all voices within the QUEST Center are heard. A central element of our new structure are communication formats to regularly inform all QUEST members about current discussions and decisions, and to enable direct exchange with the Steering Board.

The main foci of the QUEST Center are:

Quality assurance / Education & Training / Incentives

  • Education and Training

    We develop and implement training and teaching resources on experimental and study design, methods to reduce bias, new modes of publishing, the digital footprint of academics, as well as open science.

  • Incentives and reward systems

    We develop new incentive systems in research, e.g. by selecting appropriate novel indicators and metrics for the assessment of research performance of researchers and institutions.

  • Quality assurance

    We promote compliance of preclinical as well as clinical research with standards and guidelines on design, conduct, analysis and reporting.

Open Science / Meta Research / Stakeholder Engagement

  • Open Science

    We increase the accessibility and transparency of BIH research through Open Data and promote research data management.

  • Patient & Stakeholder Engagement

    We develop, support and evaluate Patient and Stakeholder Engagement activities throughout the entire process of biomedical research.

  • Meta Research

    We identify opportunities for improving research practice and obtain evidence for the impact of its activities through 'research on research'.

Details on the theoretical framework as well as the previous approaches and experiences of the QUEST Center can be found here. A commentary on our experiences from the first years can be found in BMC Research Notes. 
To ensure the long-term open accessibility of its outputs, the QUEST Center has adopted an Open Access Policy.

We accompany our measures with a monitoring and evaluation system. You can find more information here.

Here you can find our projects and services. You can find our current courses and workshops here.

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Contact

QUEST Center

Contact information
E-mail:quest[at]bih-charite.de