Seminar ICT in Life Sciences Innovations

In 2011 we worked from ad-hoc team projects towards grant submission to just-in-time-decided agencies. To help increase the research depth, usability and general focus of the seminar, the course has now been centered around one predefined research topic per course edition from 2012 onward.

TOPIC 2012: This year's INFOMILSI will have as its starting point Michiel Meulendijk's PhD research on a decision support system for polypharmacy optimisation in the Dutch primary care sector, which we aim to extend both functionally as internationally. How, that's largely up to you...

Together we will prepare one ERC Starting Grant. Specifically for me, Marco, as this level of focus is required as will become clear soon enough. Among others, the following aspects will be covered:

• Study all relevant documentation and procedures,
• Analyse preceeding grants awarded to help determine success factors
• Generate ideas through brainstorm sessions to decide upon the most-likely-to-be-awarded research gap
• Identify the key research areas and perform state-of-the-art literature studies
• Plan the proposal structure to best communicate our idea
• Explore the relevant sector and its key players,
• Identify potential partners, both academic and industrial,
• Predict solution usage based on literature,
• Research best applicable methodologies to model information exchange (DFD) and usability,
• Calculate potential societal gains resulting from implementing the proposed project
• Incorporate appropriate sensitivity for the political dimensions regarding societal frictions surrounding care automation

One notable and experimental part of the course is your required participation in Coursera's MOOC Healthcare Innovation and Entrepreneurship, an interdisciplinary course focusing on sustainable innovation by introducing entrepreneurial students to the realities of problem identification and solution design within the complex world of healthcare. You will need to complete this online course in order to complete this course! It starts on Apr 15th 2013, is only 6 weeks long and has a workload of 5-7 hours/week. Make sure you are enrolled in time!

NOTE: Depending on the number of enrolled students we may decide to also prepare a small business proposal on the same topic for potential submission in the EuroStars programme.

You will mostly work in small teams of 3-4 students, but document your activities on an individual basis in an online course diary. You will prepare meetings based on weekly assignments such as focused literature studies, and foreign market studies.

You will help shape the research topic through brainstorm sessions, present reviews of papers, peer review each other's text fragments in great detail, and proactively exchange and discuss your thoughts and concerns regarding the project.

You will document your experiences and activities weekly in an online diary which you will complete as the End Report at the end of the course.

In parallel, you will also participate in the Coursera MOOC: HIE.

• Presence at all meetings is a precondition for delivering your part of the complete grant proposal at the end of the course, and passing this course.
• Your workshop participation and grant proposal contributions will be judged and graded by the lecturers throughout the entire course.
• You will also write down all your weekly contributions in an individual End Report which you will develop throughout the life time of the course online (as in a project diary), and which you will complete in full before the End Report deadline.
• Finally, you are required to show a Statement of Accomplishment signed by the MOOC's instructors.

Positioning

As this course is somewhat related to the MBI courses Seminar Medical Informatics (INFOMSMI) and ICT Entrepreneurship (INFOIE), the table below may help clarify their mutual relationships through several key aspects.

Intended audience

As a scientific or industrial researcher you will be required to regularly acquire project funding from governmental agencies (e.g. NWO, ZonMW). As a business/ICT consultant you may get involved in national or international tenders (e.g. Aanbestedingskalender). And last but not least, as an aspiring product software entrepreneur you can attempt to obtain R&D funding specifically for SMEs to develop innovations (e.g. STW, SBIR, Eurostars) or enter your innovative product into one of the many award competitions (e.g. Herman Wijffels innovatieprijs, Website of the year).