Maastricht University (UM) – NH initiative

About Maastricht University

Since established in 1976, Maastricht University has left a unique mark on higher education in the Netherlands, Europe as a whole. Building on its distinctive and extremely innovative  method  of Problem Based Learning (PBL), it has evolved into a European Research University with a strong research outlook, which is responsible for its distinction as one of Europe’s most international universities.

University has embarked up on an ambitious target to focus on building strong connect to India and has opened a subsidiary (Maastricht Education and Research Centre- MERC) in Bangalore. The mandate for this unique India initiative is to build partnerships with the best in India and build top quality research in select areas of social relevance.

There is outstanding research carried out at Maastricht University in several areas, like health and life sciences, psychology and neuroscience, knowledge engineering, law (environment, trade treaties, IP etc.), business, economics,  arts, humanities, and social sciences. Research at some of the departments qualifies to belong to the best in the world. To cite an example, specific features of research in Life Sciences at UM are indicated below:

(i) The seamless integration of top quality research in life sciences starting from molecular models, in-vitro evaluations, ex-vivo studies, animal studies, toxicology, medical devises, human volunteer/clinical studies and large scale cohort studies into one productive unit. A very unique example of practising translational Medicare research.

(ii) Medial Devises R&D draws knowledge from the entire spectrum of expertise in clinicians, applied scientists, and basic researchers in health and life sciences. This is one of the very few institutions where Medical devises R&D co-exists with a full-fledged medical centre and top quality life sciences research.

(iii) The enormous depth in some areas of nutrition, metabolic syndrome, neuroscience, image processing, radiation therapy and life sciences are of extreme relevance to industries which has or /intents to have operations in the domain of health care.

(iv) Over 1900 publications in top refereed journals from health/life sciences and over 130 PhDs awarded yearly.

(v) Areas of specific strength at UM in health and  life sciencesare:

  • Cardiovascular health
  • Chronic diseases/Metabolic syndrome – Diabetes, Obesity, Pulmonary diseases etc.
  • Neuroscience
  • Oncology
  • Gut health
  • Pharmacology; toxicogenomics; clinicals; epidemiology  etc.
  • Medicare devises

UM’s India initiative

UM embarked up on a very unique initiative to focus on India and build research capacity through partnerships. The salient features of this program are:

  1. Focus on building research capacity through synergistic partnerships.
  2. Build thematic research in India. The triangle of  building blocks  is:

a. Best of UM

b. Best of India – partner Indian institutes – examples of partners or potential partners are:  Narayana Hrudayalaya, Aravind Eye care, PES IT, ISI, IISc., ISEC, IIM A, top National Law schools, NCBS,  , St. John’s Hospital, etc.

c.  Themes of social relevance to India

UM’s Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals initiative making good progress

Narayana Hrudayalaya and Maastricht University (MU) signed a MoU in 2009. The broad theme of this MoU is to carry out the following

  1. Joint research programs where the degree is offered by MU
  2. Fellowship programs at MU
  3. Work on proposals for joint research and development
  4. Knowledge exchange programs like Conferences and workshops

In the last 18 months there has been good progress and today we have more than a dozen research scholars at NH working for their PhD with Maastricht University, few doctors are perceiving their full time PhD program at MU. In Nov 11, MU actively participated in ECMO conference  organise by NH.

Onsite office setup with a full time research coordinator in NH to coordinate activates on daily basis. There are couple of joint research proposals submitted through this initiative

For more details contact:

Dr.Shyam Vasudevarao
Shyam Vasudevarao, PhD
Technical Director
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences
shyam.vasudevarao@gmail.com
www.maastrichtuniversity.nl
1st Floor, A wing,
Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center,
Narayana Hrudydlaya Health City
No. 258/A, Bommasandra Industrial Area, Anekal Taluk,
Bangalore 560 099, Karnataka, INDIA
M +91 98458 42363

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