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QUEST – Quality | Ethics | Open Science | Translation

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

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.

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

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.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Dirnagl

Founding Director | BIH Chair | Research Group Leader

ORCID | Website | Team

Contact information
E-mail:quest@bih-charite.de