Amsterdam Cohort Hub brings together colleagues of different cohorts and different expertise to bring together knowledge, learn faster and develop sustainable solutions. Since November 2023 more than 50 colleagues have been working on assignments to reach their goals in this first phase of the Amsterdam Cohort Hub. Topics they are working on include:
- Collaboration in terms of participant policy, sharing of materials, joint appointments, and training/professionalization of staff,
- Harmonization in terms of collecting, coding and storing data, and making data accessible,
- Making data machine-readable towards data FAIRification,
- Development of a data catalogue and website to make data from cohort studies available to external researchers and parties with research questions,
- Tailoring the specific support needed by cohort studies to perform their work effectively.
Being part of the Amsterdam Cohort Hub (ACH) community is beneficial not only for cohort studies, but also for their researchers. ACH aims to provide more insight in all available cohort studies in the Amsterdam region, and is striving for better access to many valuable and rich data sets of these longitudinal cohort studies. Within their newly established ‘Researchers community’, researchers collaborate to promote the use of advanced methodologies and share knowledge and practices to strengthen their analyses. Other communities of fieldworkers, data stewards, data managers and coordinators similarly work on the exchange of experiences and best practices in their fields.
We obtain our goals by connecting cohort studies, sharing resources, increasing visibility and accessibility, improving cohort support, and securing formal recognition and structural funding.
Cohort studies
Amsterdam UMC, VU Amsterdam, and UvA are proud of their rich collection of population-based cohort studies. In these studies, data are collected from large groups of citizens, often regarding lifestyle and health. Notable studies affiliated to ACH include the Hoorn studies, the Netherlands Twin Register (NTR), NESDA, HELIUS, and many more. On the webpage you can find all 16 cohorts currently affiliated to ACH and their participating staff-members.
These cohort studies generate a great variety of valuable scientific output and societal impact. It is impressive to see how the new thinking about open science and FAIR data encourages collaboration between these studies. Therefore, the Amsterdam Cohort Hub supports these cohorts in strengthening their connections. More than 55 employees of cohort studies are currently collaborating on projects to expand and integrate their joint network. These researchers, field workers, data managers, data stewards and coordinators, are working hard to develop the Amsterdam Cohort Hub into a strong, reliable and valuable platform.
Interested in joining Amsterdam Cohort Hub?
More information on ACH, the project, the organization, and more, can be found on the webpage. Subscribe to the newsflash to receive regular news updates on the progress of ACH and/or let ACH know you're interested in joining ACH by sending an email to cohorthub@amsterdamumc.nl
First Annual Cohort Conference Amsterdam
In the afternoon of Wednesday 3rd of July, Amsterdam Cohort Hub is organizing its first Annual Cohort Conference and we are happy to welcome you at the Amsterdam Public Library (Oosterdok). ACH would like to celebrate the power of cohort research with you. The first Annual Cohort Conference is meant for all professionals – from data experts, to researchers to fieldworkers - involved or interested in cohort research and cohort studies.
During the conference, two keynote speakers will talk about cross-cohort research and linkaging cohorts with external databases. The main part of the afternoon consists of breakout sessions. There are multiple sessions attendees can choose from, for example: data sharing, using AI, implementation studies, ethical aspects, success stories, co-creation, reliability & validity of measurements and participants’ perspectives. Additionally, there will be poster presentations for PhD students working with cohort data. More information & registration can be found using this link.
The Amsterdam Cohort Hub is established in September 2023 and facilitated by the ‘Sectorgelden’, granted by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. More information can be found on the webpage Amsterdam Cohort Hub please contact ACH via cohorthub@amsterdamumc.nl