French National Plateform for End-of-Life Research
By generating knowledge, research contributes to the evolution and to the improvement of health care practices. It also favorizes the acculturation of health professionals and citizens to end-of-life issues.
From drug research to philosophy, through economics and public health, end-of-life research covers a wide range of disciplines and approaches (medicine, nursing, public health, epidemiology, economics, psychology, sociology, ethics, etc.). Because of this complexity, this research is not yet sufficiently structured both at the national and international level.
For this purpose, the French National Platform for End-of-Life Research was created in 2018 to improve french research quality and to promote exchanges between researchers. By bridging together researchers and clinicians, the Platform encourages interdisciplinary interfaces, collaborative approaches and methodological innovations that take into account the complex realities of end of life situations.
The French National Platform for End-of-Life Research is funded by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the French Ministry of Health and Prevention, the National Solidarity Fund for Autonomy (CNSA). It is supported by the House of Human and Environmental Sciences (MSHE) of the University of Franche-Comté and the National center for scientific research (CNRS)
Objectives
The platform aims to:
- federate research forces in the field of end-of-life research ;
- promote interdisciplinary exchanges and optimize partnerships between researchers and clinicians from different disciplines, at regional, national and international level;
- make end-of-life research known and recognized and of interest to scholarly societies, research institutes and policy makers;
- propose strategic research orientations.
Actions
Establishing a research observatory
- by offering and maintaining both a national researcher online directory to identify researchers working on end-of-life in France and a research project directory to increase the visibility of their work.
- by mapping research teams;
- by publishing anually a research overview;
- by listing PhD thesis in progress;
- by conducting surveys;
- by describing french scientific production using bibliometry.
Favorizing the emergence of dedicated call for projects
- by defining End-of-life research's field;
- by establishing priority areas for emerging research;
- by drafting dedicated call for projects;
- by preparing research teams to respond to these call for projects;
- by meeting with decision-makers, research institutes, associations and scientific societies concerned with End-of-Life.
Animating the french scientific community
- by organizing conferences, seminars and workshops;
- by encouraging network members to collaborate ;
- by undertaking scientific watch and broadcasting scientific news ;
- by promoting End-of-life research (online and on social networks);
- by developping international relations.
Coordinating research projects
- The Platform was exceptionally commissioned to coordinate a national study on the end of life and death in nursing homes during the Covid-19 pandemic (COVIDEHPAD study).
End-of-life resarch in France
At the moment, 336 researchers interested in the End-of-life are registered in our national directory.
Women are more than men (63% versus 37%). 62 disciplines are represented, about the half belongs to the medical, paramedical, life and earth sciences and the other half to the human and social sciences.