Bridging the gap between research and practice in addiction? Introduction to a special issue on the Dutch Addiction Programme (2005)

ENGLISH :
The Dutch Addiction Programme started in 1997 as a collaboration between the Netherlands Research Council (NWO) and the Netherlands Organisation on Research and Development in Health (ZonMw). The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports and the Ministry of Education provided means to develop a programme on research and development in addiction for the period 19972003. Until 1997 the field of addiction research in The Netherlands was underdeveloped and single projects were more or less scattered over research groups in The Netherlands. With a programmatic approach, addiction research in The Netherlands should be stimulated in a coherent way. More attention should be paid to the quality of the research as well as to the connection between research and practice. The programme, as developed, integrates fundamental research and more applied research, as well as development of new prevention and intervention methods. The general aim of the programme is to stimulate in a programmatic way research as well as innovative projects and experiments in the field of addiction and addiction care and prevention. In addition, the programme is also meant to make an effort to bridge the gap between research and practice. At the end of the 6-year programme the main question therefore is: to what extent has the programme succeeded in stimulating research and innovative projects and have fundamental and clinical research, social research and addiction prevention and treatment become more closely connected? This special issue focuses on some interesting results from this research programme. In addition, the epilogue sheds some light on the extent to which programme aims have been achieved and how to proceed in the future. (Review' s abstract)