Our Story

• The Netherlands Women’s Health Research & Innovation Center at Erasmus MC brings together academics, consumers, policymakers, and clinicians to examine the factors that impact the health and wellbeing of women across their life course.
• Based in the Department of Internal Medicine, the Center coordinates the Erasmus MC Women’s Health Research and Innovation Roadmaps and Programs. Over time, it will evolve into a Regional Health Partners hub and a National Women’s Health Research & Innovation Institute for Translation and Impact.
• The Center is run by Jeanine Roeters van Lennep and Prof. dr. Hanneke Takkenberg.

Jeanine Roeters van Lennep is an internist in vascular medicine at Erasmus MC. Her special interests are gender differences in healthcare in general and in the field of cardiovascular diseases in particular. She focuses on female-specific cardiovascular risk factors, including pregnancy complications such as pre-eclampsia and pregnancy hypertension, as well as early menopause, PCOS, and menstruation-related complaints. In her work, she combines patient care with research and education, sharing her knowledge with students, trainee doctors, and colleagues. Erasmus MC has (as the only hospital) a long-term cardiovascular aftercare clinic for women who have had severe pre-eclampsia. This clinic is a collaboration between the departments of vascular medicine and gynecology, aiming to prevent cardiovascular diseases in women.

Hanneke Takkenberg is Professor of Management Education focusing on Women in Business at Rotterdam School of Management. She is co-executive director of the Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations (ECWO) at RSM where she leads the centre’s research initiatives. Since 2012, she has been Professor of Clinical Decision Making in Cardio-Thoracic Interventions at Erasmus University Medical Center (MC. At the Erasmus MC, her current research focuses on prognosis and clinical and shared decision making in cardiovascular interventions, with special attention to male-female differences. Prof. Takkenberg’s research at RSM broadly focuses on network analysis, with a particular focus on women’s organisations as well as personal networks. She also facilitates within RSM’s Executive Education's women in business programmes. At Erasmus MC, Prof. Takkenberg has worked to improve healthcare for women. For that she was recognised with the 2018 Els Borst award for her scientific and societal efforts. In 2019, she received the Caty Asscher award for her efforts to achieve gender diversity in the Erasmus MC and Erasmus University Rotterdam. This was through the founding of VENA (2006), the Erasmus MC network for women in academia, her work as Chief Diversity Officer for EUR (2015-2018) and her initiation of the Diversity and Inclusion programme for the Erasmus MC in 2018.

• We are building a critical mass of expertise and valuable data assets to study the biological, socio-economic, environmental, and interpersonal challenges that prevent women from achieving optimal health.
• These data assets are crucial for developing health service delivery programs not only in our region but also across the Netherlands, Europe, and beyond.
• We develop and implement in co-creation with experience experts, clinicians, research staff, public and private partners women’s health research and innovation projects.

To pioneer scientific breakthroughs for enhancing women's health across their lifespan:

• Recognizing the distinct biology of females, that differs from males, including dissimilarities in chromosomes and hormonal profiles, the institute seeks to address gaps in understanding and medical practice.
• Revolutionizing women's health by prioritizing research tailored to the unique physiological characteristics and requirements of females at all life stages.
• Investigating the underlying reasons behind the prevalence of certain diseases in women, as well as the gender-specific manifestations of illnesses.
• By uncovering these intricacies, healthcare providers can enhance preventive strategies, diagnostic accuracy, and treatment efficacy for conditions that significantly impact women's well-being.

• Include both women-specific conditions and diseases that manifest differently in women.
• Address the life course of women (priority to working women).
• Prioritize conditions with a high GDP impact and conditions that lead to disability.
• Allow for fruitful collaborations with public and private parties with a focus on tech industry, women entrepreneurs, patient organizations and women’s networks/initiatives.

• We promote transdisciplinary collaborations and convergence between various fields.
• The Erasmus MC Women’s Health Research and Innovation Agenda focuses on four key transdisciplinary themes and aims to achieve the following objectives, reaching out to the world.
  1. contribute towards a better insight into the causes of conditions that are women-specific and which heavily affect women’s lives, economy and society.
  2. contribute towards a better understanding of the determinants of women’s health and chronic diseases. Addressing the gender gap in conditions that affect women differently than men and/or disproportionally, and which heavily affect women’s lives, economy and society.
  3. integrate fragmented health research and innovation efforts by bringing together our diverse knowledge, focusing on unmet women’s health needs, to enable the development of tools, data, platforms, technologies and processes for improved prediction, prevention, interception, diagnosis, treatment and management of diseases, meeting the needs of women’s health across life stages.
  4. closing existing gaps that exist across the data value chain. Exploiting the full potential of digitalization and data in women’s health and enable the development of new and improved methodologies and models for a comprehensive women’s health optimization and solutions. Neither data nor the programs or models (ML/AI) applied to it are de facto neutral.

• Aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 3 for 2030, our goal is to transform traditional health and medical research into holistic, integrative health approaches using a life course model.
• We aim to shift the focus from disease to health and from health to a healthy life course for all women.

By focusing on these areas, we hope to improve health outcomes for women globally, ensuring sustainable, healthy lives for current and future generations.