As a former senior staff member of the Dutch Advisory Council for Health Research at the Health Council in The Netherlands (1997-2009) Rob van der Sande has a broad experience in research policy and research innovation. He is author of various reports of the Council on topics such as elderly care, research in nursing care, trauma care, medical technology assessment. He has been secretary of the Dutch Association for Technology Assessment in Health Care.

Rob van der Sande has been professor (lector) of Primary and Community Care at the HAN University of Applied Sciences (HAN UAS) in Nijmegen from 2009 to 2023.His expertise includes ‘community nursing’, ‘community care’ and ‘pain and palliative care’. His mission at the HAN UAS was to develop practice based research in nursing and paramedical care. His research concerned adverse effects of ehealth in primary care, culture sensitive care for non-western diabetes patients, the prevention of chronic pain,  and nurse led palliative care in the community. He was member of the Methodological Advisory and Expert Group on Quality Standards (AQUA) of the Dutch Healthcare Institute (Zorginstituut Nederland), and member of the ZonMw committee on Quality of Care/ Quality Standardization.

From 2017 to 2024 he was president of the Committee on Research Integrity at the HAN university. He took the initiative for the development of a national training course for researchers in research integrity. He is president of Zr Vernède Foundation which gives grants to activities and projects focusing on the history of nursing and care in the Netherlands.

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