About UMCG

UMCG is a university medical center and teaching hospital in Groningen, closely integrated with the University of Groningen. Its mission is to “push boundaries for a sustainable future of health”, combining complex academic hospital care, research, and education as a three-in-one core task. UMCG aims to continually improve diagnostics and treatments, invest in innovation, and increasingly focus on prevention and public health, improving population health in the region while keeping costs stable or lower. | Source: umcg.nl

UMCG Research focuses on understanding mechanisms of disease, developing new diagnostics and therapies, and “building a network for sustainable health”, positioning UMCG as a pioneering center for medical research with strong national and international collaboration networks. | Source: umcg research 

Collaborations with GHH-partners

Universities & UMCs 

  • UMC Utrecht (UMCUTRECHT) – Health Holland Mission Teams 
    • UMCG (via Jochen Mierau) and UMC Utrecht experts both serve in Health Holland Mission Team I, which focuses on prevention and health promotion within the Dutch Life Sciences & Health (LSH) missions. This is a structured collaboration platform where UMCG and UMC Utrecht co-shape the national mission agenda on prevention and population health. | Source: health-holland.com

Knowledge institutes / funders / sector platforms 

  • ZonMw – Health Holland mission governance 
    • ZonMw staff sit together with UMCG experts in Mission Team I and II (e.g. Claudine Lamoth, UMCG, in Mission Team II). These teams program and coordinate national research and innovation efforts for the LSH missions, giving UMCG a direct link to ZonMw’s funding and agenda-setting. | Source: health-holland.com 
  • TNO – Health Holland mission ecosystem 
    • TNO co-chairs Health Holland Mission Team I, while UMCG is represented in the same mission team through Jochen Mierau. This means UMCG and TNO work together in shaping the Dutch prevention and population-health mission, aligning research and innovation agendas. | Source: health-holland.com
  • Health Holland
    • The mission teams themselves are part of Health Holland (Topsector Life Sciences & Health); by participating in these teams, UMCG collaborates structurally with Health Holland in designing and implementing the Dutch LSH missions, which include prevention, chronic disease and healthy living. | Source: umcg; health-holland.com

Overview of characteristics

Activities: 

  • Netherlands (primary): Tertiary/quaternary academic hospital care; population health and public-health research; infectious diseases, vaccinology, ICU and health-economics research; post-COVID expertise (post-COVID expert center from 2025). | Source: umcg research; umcg; umcg 
  • Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam: Scaling up community-based prevention and management of NCDs (diabetes, hypertension) through the SUNI-SEA project, linking community activities to primary care. | Source: umch research; SUNI-SEA
  • Global / multi-country consortia:
    • VALUE-Dx: European consortium on rapid diagnostics and AMR in respiratory tract infections; UMCG leads the work package on economic value, policies and innovative funding models. | Source:  umcg research; umcg research
    • PRESCRIP-TEC: cervical cancer screening and “screen-and-treat” approaches in resource-poor or hard-to-reach settings worldwide. | Source: umcg research
  • Global health economics & ICU / COVID-19 costing studies across European and other settings, including modelling ICU ventilation costs in COVID-19. | Source: GitHub; BioMed Central; RUG research

Community of Practice:  

  • CoP1: Strengthening Health Systems 
  • CoP2: Pandemic Preparedness 
  • CoP3: Climate Change and Health 

Themes & subthemes within CoP1, CoP2 and CoP3 

CoP1 – Strengthening health systems 

  • Themes 
    • Primary health care & chronic disease prevention: 
      The Global Health group focuses on prevention of chronic diseases and complications, with projects like SUNI-SEA and FRESHAIR4Life, which strengthen community and primary care for NCDs and tobacco/air-pollution exposure in adolescents. | Source: umcg research; GACD 
    • Global maternal and child health / SRHR: 
      Research fields explicitly include global maternal and child health and international aspects of reproductive health and safe motherhood, as reflected in the professorships within the Global Health group (e.g. safe motherhood chair; PRESCRIP-TEC for cervical cancer screening in resource-poor settings). | Source: umcg research 
    • Health economics and health-system sustainability: 
      UMCG’s Global Health group emphasises public-health cost-effectiveness analysis and global health technology assessment, using large data sets and models to inform preventive strategies, diagnostics uptake and resource allocation. | Source: umcg research 
      VALUE-Dx and MERIAM explicitly model the economic value of rapid diagnostics and test-and-treat strategies at first-line care, which supports more efficient, sustainable health systems. | Source: umcg research 
  • Subthemes 
    • Community-based and primary-care NCD prevention and scale-up (SUNI-SEA, FRESHAIR4Life). | Source: umcg research; SUNI-SEA 
    • Maternal, newborn and reproductive health, including cervical cancer screening in low-resource settings (PRESCRIP-TEC; safe motherhood research). | Source: umcg research 
    • Health-economic evaluation and HTA to support PHC and SRHR investment decisions (VALUE-Dx, MERIAM). | Source: umcg research; UMCG Global Health 

CoP2 – Pandemic preparedness 

  • Themes 
    • AMR, diagnostics and respiratory infections: 
      VALUE-Dx (UMCG as academic lead for WP5) builds the medical and economic case for rapid diagnostics as a public good against AMR, focusing on respiratory tract infections in community care and inappropriate antibiotic use. | Source: umcg research 
      MERIAM and related models quantify the long-term health-economic effects of improved diagnostics for respiratory infections, feeding into AMR and pandemic-related policy. | Source: GitHub 
    • Infection prevention & medical microbiology: 
      The Medical Microbiology and Infection Prevention department has a “tradition and responsibility to understand the nature of microorganisms in the emergence of infectious diseases” and conducts fundamental, applied and clinical research to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infections. | Source: umcg research 
      This includes infection-prevention research, new diagnostics and treatment options, all highly relevant to epidemic and pandemic preparedness. 
    • Vaccinology and vaccine innovation: 
      UMCG vaccinology research develops technologies such as dry-powder influenza vaccines using sugar-glass technology and participates in a European project using “mini-lungs in a dish” to predict which vaccines work best against respiratory infections like flu. These innovations contribute to vaccine development pipelines and delivery strategies for future outbreaks. | Source: umcg research; UMCG 
    • Pandemic health-economics & ICU capacity: 
      The Global Health Hub Groningen GitHub hosts code for studies on COVID-19 hospitalization costs, ICU mechanical ventilation costs and early health technology assessment of ICU AI systems: work that informs resource planning and cost-effective responses in future pandemics. | Source: GitHub 
  • Subthemes
    • Economic and policy analysis for AMR-sensitive diagnostics (VALUE-Dx, MERIAM). | Source: umcg research; IHI 
    • Infection-prevention and clinical microbiology research to prevent and manage outbreaks. | Source: umcg research 
    • Vaccine formulation and pre-clinical vaccine evaluation for respiratory pathogens. | Source: umcg research; UMCG 
    • ICU and hospital cost modelling for pandemic preparedness (capacity and cost implications of ventilation/ICU stays). | Source: GitHub; BioMed Central

CoP3 – Climate change and health 

  • Themes 
    • Sustainable, low-carbon healthcare delivery: 
      UMCG treats sustainability as core to its mission: decarbonising care, research and education, and making care “future-proof, affordable and sustainable”. | Source: UMCG 
      Focus areas (from Duurzaam UMCG & campus initiatives) include reducing energy use and emissions, greener mobility, and sustainable procurement and building. | Source: Campus Groningen 
    • Circular healthcare & waste reduction: 
      Care2Change (approx. €6M northern project) aims to reduce hospital waste and CO₂ by changing behaviour among healthcare professionals, integrating more sustainable practices into daily work, and developing reusable alternatives to single-use products. | Source: The Northern Times 
      UMCG also participates in a comparative LCA study of single-use vs reusable medical devices, supported by consultancy Ecoras. | Source: Ecoras
    • Data-driven sustainability & monitoring:
      With Ecoras, UMCG developed a data dashboard for sustainability in healthcare, providing insight into CO₂ emissions and enabling data-driven decision-making and monitoring for sustainable impact. | Source: Ecoras 
    • Regional climate-health & sustainability networks: 
      UMCG has set up a northern hospitals sustainability network and collaborates structurally with RUG on sustainability in healthcare. | Source: mtintegraal.nl 
      ​​​​​​​On the Healthy Ageing Campus, sustainability is highlighted as a key topic, and UMCG organises activities like a “sustainability market” and “Low Car Diet” campaigns to reduce its CO₂ footprint. | Source: Groningen - City of Talent 
  • Subthemes 
    • Decarbonisation of tertiary/academic care (CO₂ & energy, mobility, buildings) 
    • Circular healthcare & waste reduction (Care2Change; single-use vs reusable devices) 
    • Data-driven sustainability dashboards and monitoring tools 
    • Regional hospital sustainability networks and behaviour-change approaches in clinical practice

Organization type: 

Knowledge institute 

Available resources:  

  • Knowledge & expertise 
    • Global health & health-systems research: Broad expertise on public health, prevention of chronic diseases, global maternal and child health, health-economic modelling and AMR/infectious-disease prevention through the Global Health research group (part of the Health Sciences department). | Source: umcg research 
    • Infectious diseases, vaccinology & microbiology: Strong clinical and lab expertise in medical microbiology, infection prevention, and vaccine research (including novel formulations and predictive models for vaccine efficacy). | Source: umcg research 
    • Health economics & HTA (including pandemic-related): UMCG is a recognized center for global health economics and HTA, producing models and analyses for diagnostics, ICU interventions and AI tools relevant to pandemic preparedness and AMR policy. | Source: GitHub 
    • Programme team and technical know-how on making a large academic hospital more sustainable, including CO₂ and waste accounting, LCA of devices, and behaviour-change in clinical workflows. | Source: UMCG; Ecoras
  • Networks
    • Consortia in LMICs and Europe
      • SUNI-SEA: multi-country NCD project in Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam with strong in-country societal partners and HelpAge International. | Source: umcg research; GACD 
      • VALUE-Dx: IMI/IHI project with six diagnostic companies and 20 non-industry partners; UMCG is academic lead for policy/economic work, connecting it to industry, universities and public-health agencies across Europe. | Source: umcg research 
    • Dutch mission and hub networks: Participation in Health Holland Mission Teams (with UMC Utrecht, TNO, ZonMw, etc.) and affiliation to the Dutch Global Health Hub connect UMCG to many of your listed partners and to national strategy-setting fora. | Source: health-holland.com 
    • Lead role in the northern hospitals sustainability network, connecting multiple hospitals, RUG and companies around climate- and resource-smart care. | Source: mtintegraal.nl 
  • Influence / advocacy capacity 
    • The Global Health group notes that its vaccination projects have “high media coverage and a direct impact on parliaments and vaccination policies”, showing that UMCG can translate research into policy change at national and international levels. | Source: umcg research 
    • By sitting in Health Holland mission teams and GHH structures, UMCG helps shape Dutch mission-driven innovation and global-health agendas (e.g. prevention, AMR and diagnostics). | Source: Health Holland 
    • As a flagship university medical centre and largest employer in the Northern Netherlands, UMCG can showcase and disseminate sustainable healthcare practices regionally and nationally, feeding into broader Dutch policies on sustainable care. | Source: UMCG 
  • Financial & operational resources 
    • UMCG coordinates or co-leads EU-funded projects (Horizon 2020 SUNI-SEA; IMI/IHI VALUE-Dx; others), which implies experience in managing multi-million-euro budgets, grant compliance and multi-country implementation. | Source: CORDIS 
    • As a large academic hospital it has substantial clinical infrastructure, biobanks, cohorts and advanced research facilities, explicitly highlighted on the UMCG Research site (cohorts, facilities, biobanks). | Source: umcg research 
    • Experience managing multi-million-euro sustainability projects (e.g. Care2Change, funded via ERDF and regional partners) and implementing changes in a complex tertiary hospital environment. | Source: University of Groningen
  • Coordination capacity 
    • UMCG serves as academic lead (WP lead) in VALUE-Dx and plays central roles in SUNI-SEA and other programmes, demonstrating its ability to coordinate complex, multinational projects and to convene clinical, public-health and economic expertise. | Source: umcg research 
    • Internally, UMCG emphasizes interdisciplinary teamwork across departments and research groups, which is key for integrated health-system and pandemic-preparedness projects. | Source: umcg research 
    • Proven ability to coordinate cross-sector sustainability consortia (hospitals, universities, SMEs, consultancies) and to operationalise climate- and environment-related innovations in real clinical settings. | Source: The Northern Times 

Contact information

Website: Home | UMC Groningen - umcg.nl