Strategy and Goals

The Department of Public Health realizes its mission through:

1. conducting observational and experimental studies in general and high-risk populations on developing, evaluating, and implementing primary preventive interventions, screening, and treatment modalities in health care,
2. a strong focus, but not exclusively, on innovative quantitative methods in public health epidemiology,
3. interdisciplinary research with medical, health, social, economic, and natural sciences, and
4. close cooperation with professionals and policy makers in health care and communities which facilitates timely and effective dissemination of knowledge to create societal impact.

This mission is achieved by excellent researchers and educators with high ambition. During the past two years the number of employees kept growing. The department has about 170 staff members, of which 150 researchers with well over 100 junior-researchers / PhD-students. This illustrates our ability to acquire a large variety of funding from different national and international agencies, which is about 70% of our annual budget. Our systematic attention for talent development supports our staff to be creative, take initiatives, show leadership, and demonstrate engagement with society. The staff is diverse with about 20% from ethnic minorities and nearly 20% of researchers come from other countries. A visible strength of the department is its extensive (inter)national collaboration, which provides ample opportunities for young researchers and postdocs to spend some months abroad at leading research institutes, and, vice versa, to provide a hospitable and inspiring work environment for researchers from abroad.