Jim van Os

I have a background in Epidemiology (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and Psychiatry (Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London). My research has focused on elucidating the nature of mental variation in relation to context, and identifying the interactions between environment and genetic liability driving this variation. Over the course of my career, I have developed a passion for making psychiatry more relevant for its users in terms of diagnostic practice, the use of scientific findings to create clinical impact, health service organization, teaching and co-creation with users. I think there is an urgent need to balance the discourse and the scientific focus of the psychiatric profession on the one hand, and the needs and wishes of patients and their relatives on the other. In my work as Neuroscience Division leader at MUMC and now UMCU, I have attempted to forge collaboration between the clinical neurosciences in order...