Promoting ongoing improvement in research quality is one of the primary goals of Amsterdam Public Health (APH) research institute. Opening up research practices in ongoing research projects to colleagues within the research institute foster a research culture of transparency, trust, mutual support, and continuous improvement. A tool developed by the APH Scientific Quality Committee (SQC), to foster the quality of research projects, is the Research Quality (RQ) visit.

The RQ visit is a peer-led procedure that can take place at any point during the research life cycle of a research project. The additional peer feedback provided with the RQ visit, is of added value, since for most research projects peer feedback occurs only at the proposal and reporting phase. With these RQ visits, the APH SQC provide the possibility for peer feedback across all three phases of the research life cycle, complementing other systems in which researhc is embedded, relating to compliance, training and supervision.

A RQ visit can take approximately 1-2 hours. After the RQ visit, a draft report will be generated by the SQC secretary and handed over to the project leader for verification and further sharing. Project leaders of visited research projects will be asked for permission to be entered in a database of potential peer volunteers for future RQ visits.

The report of the visit summarizes the feedback given on the topics as discussed. Additional links to the APH Quality Handbook are provided to give the project leader further insights of the concerning issues. If needed, the APH SQC can also establish contact with other relevant APH researchers with expertise on the research issue.

Value of the RQ visit

RQ visits can increase research quality along the research life cycle. The visits can detect barriers for practicing good quality research and provides expert-level recommendations. The visit can also inform project leaders whether their research project is on the right track. The RQ visits also collect best practices that can be shared with other researchers and lead to recommendations at a strategic level for research institutes and research boards to remove obstacles in practicing good quality research.

The value is greatest for research projects that are ongoing (i.e., the set-up and conduct phase). Before the actual RQ visit, the research project team is invited to select at least three topics as a starting point. The list of topics is presented in the document below.

More detailed information about the RQ visit can be found in the document above. Signing-up is done through an online form. Read more about APH Scientific Quality.

For questions, send an email to aph.sqc@amsterdamumc.nl