Consortium
The NEED consortium constitutes a complementary and interdisciplinary group of researchers, some of them pioneers in their field of research. The consortium covers the different scientific disciplines of the project.
Project partners
Irina Cleemput | KCE | Project Lead
Irina Cleemput, PhD is senior health economist and scientific programme director at KCE and has led several projects related to priority setting for reimbursement and unmet medical needs. Her work has led to several publications in peer-reviewed journals (orcid) as well as externally validated scientific reports published on the website of KCE (link). She has been involved in EUnetHTA since the start of the network, as representative of KCE, is member of the EU HTA Network Coordination Group as Belgian representative and represents KCE as associated partner in the steering committee of the International Horizon Scanning Initiative (IHSI). At KCE, Irina has established the patient involvement procedures and network within KCE and collaborated on several occasions with NIHDI (e.g. unmet medical needs programme – development and pilot testing of a multi-criteria decision approach to appraise unmet medical needs). She has chaired the HTA and Payers’ stakeholder advisory group within PREFER (IMI project on incorporating patient preferences in medical product decision making along the medical product lifecycle that ran from 2016-2022) and co-chaired the work package on the recommendations. Since 2019, Irina is part of the management team of KCE, as director of the scientific programme.
Robby De Pauw | Sciensano | Project Co-Lead
Robby De Pauw, PhD MSc is a senior researcher at Sciensano and guest professor at Ghent University, Belgium. He conducts policy-driven public health research in the domain of composite measures of population health and health inequalities. At Sciensano, he is developing the Belgian National Burden of Disease Study, and is involved in several national projects aiming to valorise and strengthen the Belgian health information system (often including linkages between different data sources). The past few months, he played a key role in COVID-19 surveillance and reporting, and is actively exploring options to further valorise the data collected during the crisis. Robby De Pauw holds a PhD degree in Health Sciences (Ghent University) and MSc degrees in Biostatistics (Ghent University) and Rehabilitation Sciences (Ghent University). He is keeping his statistical knowledge up-to-date and is currently working on projects that assess mediators and moderators in respect to social inequalities, whiplash, and COVID-19. To date, Robby De Pauw is involved in the supervision of 7 PhD students, has guided over 80 MSc students during his career, and has published over 50 peer reviewed journal articles. Although still at an early stage of his research career, dr. Robby De Pauw has successfully coordinated the national seroprevalence study at Sciensano, and the Belgian Burden of Disease study (BeBOD). He has won several research rewards at (inter)national conferences, has an h-index of 18 according to Google Scholar. His work has been widely cited, and a full list can be found here.
Charline Maertens de Noordhout | KCE | Principal Investigator
Charline Maertens de Noordhout, PhD, has been an expert in Health Services Research at the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre (KCE) since 2018 and serves as the principal investigator of the NEED team since its beginning. Prior to this role, she contributed to the development of a methodology to identify patients’ needs in Belgium and collaborated on various KCE projects in health system assessment, mental health, and health economics. In 2024, she actively participated in preparing the scientific content for a high-level conference hosted by the Belgian EU Presidency, themed ‘Health-related Needs: Drivers for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.’ Before joining KCE, Charline worked as a nurse and as a teaching assistant in epidemiology and statistics at the Catholic University of Louvain. She also contributed to several prioritization exercises for health conditions and diseases, as well as projects assessing the burden of disease both nationally and internationally for the WHO. Her work has resulted in numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals (link), scientific awards, and externally validated scientific reports published on the KCE website (link). Charline holds a Bachelor's degree in Nursing, a Master's degree in Epidemiology, and a PhD in Public Health from the Catholic University of Louvain.
Laurence Kohn | KCE
Laurence Kohn, PhD is senior expert in sociological analysis at KCE since 2004. She is specialized in qualitative research methods and has created and is responsible for the qualitative research cell at KCE. Her work has led to several publications in peer-reviewed journals as well as externally validated scientific reports published on the website of KCE (link), mainly in health service research. She participated actively in the development of the patient involvement processes. She was part of to the team who developed a methodology to identify patients' needs in Belgium (Maertens de Noordhout et al. 2022) In addition, she has been involved in EUnetHTA. Laurence holds a PhD in Public health and a MSc in Social sciences.
Caroline Obyn | KCE
Caroline Obyn has been an expert health economist at the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre (KCE) since 2007. With a robust background in applied economics and health policy, Caroline has led and contributed to numerous projects across a broad range of topics at KCE. Her expertise primarily lies in cost analysis as part of health technology assessments, health services research and health system performance assessment. In the NEED project she focuses on the economic indicators. Caroline holds a Master’s degree in Applied Economics as well as a Master’s degree in Management and Policy in Healthcare from KU Leuven. Before joining KCE, she worked as a teaching assistant in the Finance group at KU Leuven and at Boston Consulting Group, where she undertook assignments in the Brussels, London, and Oslo offices.
Claudia Schönborn | KCE
Claudia Schönborn is a medical doctor and clinical expert at KCE since January 2023. She has a PhD from the ULB on the social inequalities in perinatal health within the Belgian context. Her research examines the experiences of perinatal healthcare services of migrant women and the pregnancy outcomes of undocumented migrants. Before joining KCE, she conducted a mixed-methods study on the patient experiences of women with breast cancer in the UK (Imperial College London) and was involved in mental health research in low and middle-income countries (King’s College London). She has also worked as a teaching fellow in epidemiology in London and in Brussels. Claudia Schönborn holds a Master of Science degree in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from King’s College London.
Julie Paradis | KCE
Julie Paradis is an occupational therapist and expert researcher at KCE since March 2025. She received her PhD at the UCL Neuroscience Institute on evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention to improve the autonomy of children with cerebral palsy. She continued her research journey by studying neuroplastic changes following an intervention based on motor skill learning and also developed expertise in creating questionnaires with psychometric analysis models. She has been involved in applied research projects implementing innovative interventions in the healthcare system in Italy and Belgium. Before joining KCE, she worked on a project using a mixed-methods approach to assess the impact of an occupational therapy intervention on individuals and on the organization of their care pathway in Belgium. She has also mentored several student theses at UCL and taught statistics and research methodology at the Haute Ecole Léonard de Vinci. Julie Paradis holds a Master's in Health from the Science and Technology domain, specializing in Disability and Autonomy (Lyon 1, France).
Rani Claerman | Sciensano
Rani Claerman is a young graduate that recently started working for Sciensano as junior researcher. During her education in biomedical sciences at Ghent University, she gained interest in public health. She is currently working on the Belgian National Burden of Disease Study at the Health information service of the epidemiology and public health department in Sciensano.
Christina Fischer Echanove | KCE
Christina Fischer Echanove is currently completing an internship at the KCE as part of her Master's degree. She holds a bachelor's degree in sociology, during which she wrote her thesis on patient consultations with asylum seekers and their translators. Now pursuing a Master's in Social Ethics in Healthcare, Christina focuses on exploring medical ethical issues and critically reflecting on them. In her internship, she will concentrate on addressing ethical challenges within the NEED project.
Sabine Corachan | KCE
Sabine Corachan is coordinator/facilitator of the NEED project. After a masters degree in molecular and cellular biology, she gained +/- 20 years experience in clinical research with roles in clinical operations, study governance and training, at GSK Vaccine headquarters as well as in non-profit organizations in Belgium. Before joining KCE, she worked as a policy officer for medicines and patient involvement in health research at the french-speaking belgian federation of patient organisations.
Nathalie Swartenbroekx | KCE
Nathalie Swartenbroekx was an expert in economic analysis at KCE from 2004 to 2012. Since 2013 she is coordinator/facilitator of KCE research projects. In particular, she has been involved in all projects related to patient involvement and patient needs.
Members of the NEED steering committee : Charles Denonne (AFMPS), Wim Penninckx (FAGG), Anja Sonemann (RIZIV), Annemie Quanten (RIZIV), Francis Arickx (RIZIV), Valentin Mutemberezi (INAMI), Anouk Waeytens (Cabinet minister Vandenbroucke), Gloria Ghéquière (Cabinet minister Vandenbroucke), Anna Kubina (Cabinet minister Vandenbroucke), Fabrice Peters (FOD Volksgezondheid), Annabelle Calomme (Sciensano), Evy Dhondt (Sciensano).
