Conference Matters 142

'We prefer to put our donors' money into research'

And it turns out that these capital funds, private individuals and companies really appreciate that we give them the opportunity to get in touch with the researchers. This way, they really get a feel for the people working on the research,” Snijder explains. Broader profile The activities that the Dutch Heart Foundation organises are aimed at the population. “It’s impor tant for us to profile ourselves more broadly. For example, it’s not easy for many agencies to make contact with socially difficult neighbourhoods in the Netherlands. We’re working on this in two ways. We did a campaign around Ramadan with influencers from the younger generation, who are part of this culture. What are good recipes? What should you think about in terms of nutrition when Ramadan starts? That campaign had a wide reach in that niche, because that’s how you have to approach it. The same applies to our collaboration with the Nouri Foundation (on behalf of the Ajax footbal ler who suffered cardiac arrest at a young age). Together with the Nouri Foundation, we ensure that in every city where there’s a professional

Heart Foundation itself, he says. All income con sists of gifts and donations.

“Live vs virtual. There’s a dilemma, especially when it comes to international knowledge exchange,” says Snijder. He acknowledges that the networking aspect of meetings is very important, but on the other hand, you must be able to justify it to yourself from the point of view of sustainability and climate objectives. “For example, my head of research didn’t go to Toronto for an important one-day meeting because we decided that you could not justify it. On the other hand, 50 members of the European Heart Network will come to Amsterdam at the end of May for a conference we’re hosting. The goal is to meet each other. I don’t believe in this kind of conference, where a whole group of participants are in the room and then a number of people are watching online on their screen. Of course, you can also work with break-outs, a technique still being developed. However, I think it will mainly be the choice between online or physically together.” Six-minute zones Something remarkable was accomplished with the AEDs, due to the Dutch Heart Foundation’s efforts and donations. The Netherlands is the only country in the world to have an infrastruc ture that is called ‘the six-minute zone’. “You could say that there’s a defibrillator on almost every street corner. And around it, there’s a very fine-meshed network of citizen care providers. If you were to suffer a cardiac arrest in the Nether lands, you can in principle get help within six minutes,” says Snijder. football organisation, AEDs are also installed in the more problematic neighbourhoods. We also combine this with resuscitation training.”

“Honestly, we’re not the collection vehicle of the cardiology community. We’re a social health fund. I must be able to justify every euro we spend. Pro moting ourselves on a large international stage, such as the ESC Congress, for example, does not fit our profile. It’s not us, but the researchers and cardiologists who are in the spotlight, who present their research that could not have taken place if they were not supported by a consortium or a grant from the Dutch Heart Foundation.” Talented researchers “We prefer to put our donors’ money into rese arch. It often involves real, innovative research. And every year we award Dekker grants to young researchers to give their ground-breaking rese arch a big push.” This year, 14 talented researchers received Dekker grants for their promising cardiovascular disease research. To date, a total of 5.6 million euros has been awarded. “For many years now, we’ve also been inviting the larger financing part ners of the Dekker grants to the awards meeting.

DUTCH CARDIOVASCULAR ALLIANCE Supporters of the Dutch cardiovascular field work together through the Dutch CardioVascular Alliance (DCVA). The Dutch Heart Foundation is one of the 24 partners. The collaborating partners create consortiums based on the alliance’s priority points of interest. A DCVA consortium is characterised by a collaboration between several research institutes and public and private organisations that create a national network around a specific cardiovascular theme. At least one of the consortium partners is the alliance’s formal financial partner. The con sortium actively contributes to the alliance in terms of allocating time and efforts to valorisation, implementation, talent development, and data infrastructure.

Examples of consortia are Check@Home, Big Data & Health, Clinical Trails and Covid-19 Initiatives.

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