Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Research integration and meta-analysis of individualized and large-scale research: methodology and application in research on the treatment of problem behaviour among persons with severe and profound intellectual disabilities." "Patrick Onghena" "Methodology of Educational Sciences, Educational Effectiveness and Evaluation, Parenting and Special Education" "Historically, qualitative and quantitative approaches have been used relatively separately in synthesizing scientific evidence in many researchdomains. During the last decade, mixed methods approaches are becoming increasingly popular, and practices of combining qualitative and quantitative data and methods at the primary empirical study level have increased considerably in frequency in the educational, health, psychological, and social sciences. However, this mixing of approaches is only rarely considered and implemented at the meta-level. The aim of this dissertation was to explore the possible contribution of mixed methods research to research integration at the meta-level (i.e., mixed methods research syntheses, MMRS). According to pragmatism, a method is only scientifically relevant if it works and if it can generate new insights and better understanding in a specific scientific domain. In line with this philosophical stance, we selected the domain of intervention research for reducing challenging behaviour in persons with intellectual disabilities to serve as test case domain for the applicability of MMRS in thedissertation. Chapter 1 presents an introduction overview of this domain. Mainly applying quantitative synthesis methods, this chapter reports on the effects of different interventions for managing challenging behaviour among persons with intellectual disabilities.The next three chapters address theoretical-methodological issues concerning MMRS. Chapter2 provides an overview of recent developments regarding MMRS, lists possible strengths of MMRS, and notes challenges concerning the implementation of MMRS. Based on this work, a framework to conduct MMRS is developed in Chapter 3, and the use of this framework is illustrated by applyingit to the planning of MMRS in our test case domain. The presented framework can help to inform researchers intending to carry out MMRS, and to provide ideas for conceptualizing, designing, and conducting MMRS. We identified the critical appraisal of mixed methods primary-level studies as an important knowledge gap in the literature on conducting MMRS. Chapter 4 presents an overview and comparison of the available critical appraisal frameworks for evaluating primary-level mixed methods articles.The last two chapters of the dissertation concern two MMRS in our test case domain. Chapter 5 reports a two-phase study on the effectiveness of different interventions for challenging behaviour in persons with intellectual disabilities. This study involved the sequential application of qualitative (i.e., qualitative meta-synthesis of 137 studies) and quantitative (i.e., multilevel meta-analysis of 285 single-case studies reporting on 598 individuals) approaches, with a dominant quantitative phase. Chapter 6 describes a study involving concurrent qualitative and quantitative phases, with a dominant qualitative phase, to systematically review the published literature on restraint interventions for managing challenging behaviour in persons with intellectual disabilities. A combination of statistical meta-analysis and qualitative meta-synthesis techniques was applied to synthesize the 95 retrieved primary-level articles. In our concluding remarks, we discuss how the MMRS method demonstrated its ability to generate fresh insights and improved understanding in the domain of intervention research for challenging behaviour among persons with intellectual disabilities (Chapters 5 and 6), as wellas in several other research domains of the educational, health, psychological, and social sciences.  " "A digital research platform to support mHealth activities (DHARMA Research)" "Pieter VANDERVOORT" "Cardio & organ systems, Health Care" "DHARMA (digital health research platform) is a remote, generic and open digital research platform to perform academic and clinical mHealth research. This platform will collect various continuous or discrete physical, physiological, contextual and environmental data from different sensory systems and databases. This is essential for research & development in data mining and machine learning (e.g. medical decision support, personalized medicine). DHARMA can be deployed multidisciplinary and supports clinical studies through comprehensive dashboards for healthcare professionals and patients. DHARMA makes it possible to validate remote monitoring strategies in the clinical practice and will be used in proof-of-concept experiments to explore the efficacy, efficiency and applicability of remote monitoring. During this project DHARMA 2.0 will be developed. We will rebuild DHARMA 1.0 in a collection of different micro-services & libraries to maximally exploit RE-USE across different applications & projects. By handling a plug & play principle in a sandbox environment we facilitate rapid prototyping for research purposes across UHasselt, ZOL and Jessa, and in the future other universities and partner organizations. Further developing DHARMA into its generic form will enable socio-economic valorization of mature research projects to aid in healthcare pathway implementation. Also, its applicability can be expanded to commercial end-purposes (e.g. services for Pharma companies)." "A digital reserach platform to support mHealth research activities" "Pieter VANDERVOORT" "Cardio & organ systems, Health Care" "Despite large technological advancements in developing novel sensory systems and state of the art devices, limited investments are made on an infrastructural level to connect and handle the amount of information these devices generate. Especially towards clinical applications, limited tools are available to handle this health information. In this project, the Mobile Health Unit, a research group supported by Hasselt University, Hospital East-Limburg and Jessa Hospital will support the development of a generic and open digital research platform for telemonitoring activities needed to perform academic and clinic research on the topic of mHealth. This remote monitoring platform will collect various physiological, contextual and environmental data from different sensory systems and databases and enhances the development of data mining and machine learning techniques essential for personalized medicine. All data will be aggregated in an operational database in the back-end which is fully compliant with the eHealth safety regulations. Front-end applications are developed for different user-profiles: healthcare professionals, patients and researchers. The digital research platform makes it possible to validate remote monitoring strategies in the clinical practice and will be used in proof-of-concept experiments to explore the efficacy, efficiency and applicability of remote monitoring. Successful proof-of-concept experiments are a first step to new spinoff activities of the MHU." "Intervention research: developing the research competencies of secondary school human science students" "Fien Depaepe" "Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Kulak Kortrijk Campus, Faculty of Social Sciences, Instructional Psychology and Technology" "The study track human sciences aims at developing students# research competencies. These competencies are considered to be an important determinant of students# study success in higher education. This project aims to investigate how to best develop students# research competencies. The effect of three different ways to develop students# research competencies will be assessed in a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. Secondary school classes of human science students will participate in one of the following three conditions: (1) a knowledge-based approach mainly focusing on knowledge of research, e.g. based on knowledge of research experiments (e.g., the Milgram experiment); (2) an analytic approach mainly focusing on the consecutive learning of specific research skills, e.g. reading a table or asking an appropriate research question; and (3) an integrated approach in which the students learn research competencies in an inquiry-based way by following the distinct phases of the research cycle. Normal 0 21 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Standaardtabel; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:0cm; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:""Arial"",sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family:""Times New Roman""; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}" "Pre-service teachers, teachers and educational research: a longitudinal study on beliefs, attitudes and participation in educational research as a professionalisation strategy" "Wim Van Dooren" "Instructional Psychology and Technology, Department of Physics and Astronomy" "The importance for teachers to possess a research-oriented attitude, of keeping up to date about and conducting educational research in the context of professional learning is widely described in literature. However, it appears that this is not evidently perceived this way by the entire professional group. In this research we want to investigate which beliefs and attitudes teachers have regarding educational research and how they are formed, from teacher training to the teaching profession. In addition, we want to map the extent to which and in what way educational research finds its place within the professionalisation strategies of teachers. This is a longitudinal study that will have its start in teacher training, in particular within the abbreviated educational master's programs at KU Leuven, within the course Master's Thesis – Educational Research. In the first place, we want to map the beliefs and attitudes of student teachers with regard to educational research. These not only have a major influence on their direct behaviour and performance, but also determine the further consultation and implementation of educational research by teachers in their further educational career. Moreover, we want to find out how these beliefs and attitudes evolve during teaching, what the role of a number of variables is in this and how we can respond to this in teacher training and professionalisation initiatives. The ultimate aim is to contribute to the strengthening of an evidence-based/informed learning culture among teachers." "Virtue based ethics and Integrity of Research: Train-the-Trainer program for Upholding the principles and practices of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity" "Kris Dierickx" "Interfaculty Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law" "Consistent application and internalization of the principles listed in the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (ECoC) requires wide spread dissemination, innovative training program and novel tools. VIRT2UE aims to develop a sustainable train-the-trainer blended learning programme enabling tailored ERI teaching across Europe, focusing on understanding and upholding the principles of the ECoC. The learning programme will provide a toolbox of educational resources and incorporate an innovative online course with face-to-face sessions designed to foster moral virtues, and apply the content of the teaching material to concrete situations.The project will: conduct a conceptual mapping amongst stakeholders to identify and rank the essential virtues for good scientific practice and their relation to the ECoC’s principles; identify and consult ERI trainers and the wider scientific community to understand existing capacity and deficiencies in ERI educational resources; develop an innovative face-to-face train-the-trainer programme to provide trainers with tools to promote the ECoC and foster researchers’ virtues; create and update training materials for trainers and researchers; implement and disseminate the train-the-trainer programme across Europe, and build capacity and consistency by focusing on underdeveloped regions and unifying fragmented efforts; evaluate the training programme in terms of trainers’ and researchers’ needs, and use the evaluation results for further developing of the training and making a sustainability plan.VIRT2UE recognizes that knowledge of rules and codes is not enough to truly uphold and internalize the principles explicated in the code and integrate them in their everyday. VIRT2UE aims to take on this challenge by offering the development of a European-wide, innovative, blended learning programme which fosters knowledge of researchers in both academia and industry of the ECoC and its application, by providing tools for reflection." "Reducing research waste and setting ethical priorities in nutrition research: New tools and indicators" "Carl Lachat" "Department of Food Technology, Safety and Health" "This research uses an interdisciplinary approach to improve the quality of nutritional epidemiology research. For this purpose, two tools are developed at different stages of research cycle, reporting guidelines at the publication stage, and ethical framework for priority settings at the initiation phase. Interventions to ensure the best implementation strategy will be taken, and recommendation of use will be disseminated widely. The first 2 years of the PhD were funded by the Schlumberger foundation. The present application concerns the second period of the phd research for 2 years." "Medico-anthropological methodologies of AIDS and communication research: Research Stay at CHIP (University of Connecticut)" "Koenraad Stroeken" "Department of Languages and Cultures" "To optimize his research into HIV, mobile communication and youth cultures in Douala, Cameroun, Ivo Ngade completes a 6 month stay at the University of Connecticut, at the Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention (CHIP), as well as at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (Yale)." "Toekenning: ARVO Foundation for Eye Research and the Eye Bank Association of America EyeFind Research: ""Grant Karen Peynshaert""" "Katrien Remaut" "Department of Pharmaceutics" "geen abstract" "International Joint Reseach Group: Research Consortium on Functional Ecology and Conservation of Cerrado Plants" "The extremely species-­‐rich flora of the Cerrado is threatened by land reclamation, environmental changes and exotic plant invasions. The joint research consortium will study the unctional ecology of native and invasive Cerrado plants in relation to availabilities of growth-­‐limiting resources (water, nitrogen, phosphorus) under conditions of multiple species interactions (plant-­‐plant, plant-­‐microbe, plant-­‐pollinator, plant-­‐herbivore).The proposed consortium combines a unique combination of expertise on plant taxonomy, genetics, morphology, physiology, ecology and biogeochemistry that enables novel research approaches. This may yieldnovel insights–and conservation management strategies –around the questions why some plants species become threatened and others a threatin the Cerrado and other Biodiversity Hotspots."