[The SGO Health Research Promotion Program. XIV. Final evaluation]

In the Netherlands, the SGO Health Research Promotion Programme was carried out from 1986 until 1997. The aim of the programme was to strengthen patient-oriented clinical research in specific fields of medicine. Some of the programme sections certainly produced a number of good publications in established national and international journals, but the programme advisory committee's main objective was to bring about a cultural change in the field of health care investigation: awareness of the principle that scientific and notably patient-centred investigation has a place in its own right in research, education and care. This resulted in a large diversity of methods of stimulation ranging from stimulation of co-operation between researchers, training of physician researchers, support of methodology development, stimulation of education and postgraduate training, to establishment of actual institutes for clinical scientific research. Patient-oriented research is the necessary link within the continuum of health research, medical education and care. Changing social and demographic developments ask for continuous innovation of this type of research. Top-down steering, as practised by the SGO, can be necessary and effective to reach this innovation.