Barbara Groot-Sluijsmans

About Barbara Groot-Sluijsmans

Barbara Groot-Sluijsmans is a professor by special appointment of Participatory Research for Health and Well-being at the AUAS. Her interest lies in promoting health, well-being and resilience, especially for people in vulnerable situations, through participatory research. With a focus is on creativity, ethics and quality. In addition to her position as professor, Barbara is an assistant professor at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam in the Health Sciences programme. She teaches and researches good ways to shape participatory research.

Barbara obtained her Master's degree in Applied Communication Sciences in 2004 and started her career as a health promoter at the GGD Amsterdam. After a job in a rehabilitation centre, she started working with qualitative market research in the corporate sector.

After 10 years she returned to the university to apply her knowledge in healthcare and to involve people who are often not heard in research in research and education. She worked in various Amsterdam city districts with residents on themes important to them. She then reflected on the challenges of participatory research with citizens in her PhD thesis.

Ancillary positions

• member of the Ethics Working Group of the International Collaboration of Participatory Health Research (ICPHR)
• member of Citizen Science NL (CS NL)
• member of the steering committee Arts & Health Netherlands
• member of the advisory board Citizen Science / Societal Engagement (NWO)
• senior programme council member Methodology programme, Amsterdam Public Health Institute (APH)