PRESIDENT WIJA OORTWIJN

Dr. Wija Oortwijn studied health sciences and holds a PhD in Medicine. Currently, Wija is employed at the Radboud University Medical Centre, Department for Health Evidence, in the field of international HTA. She has more than 25 years of relevant professional experience in HTA and health policy analysis around the globe, with her key expertise including health priority setting, policy evaluation and health services research. Since 1993, she has been extensively involved in the development of HTA and health system strengthening around the world; working with Ministries of Health, the European Commission, World Bank, and World Health Organization (WHO).

Wija was one of the authors of a report describing the organization of HTA in the Netherlands (1995). This report provided important input for Dutch HTA policy. In addition, she co-coordinated and participated in the pioneering EUR-ASSESS project (1994-1997), the first European Commission-funded project to develop coordination of HTA activities in Europe, and its successors, HTA-Europe and ECHAHI/ECHTA. These projects laid the foundation of establishing a formal basis for HTA collaboration in Europe (i.e. EUnetHTA). She has co-authored 10 book chapters concerning different aspects of HTA, edited several journal issues, has written more than 60 other scholarly published papers and has been a keynote speaker at several key HTA events around the globe.

She is a founding member of the Dutch Society for Health Technology Assessment (1995), and a founding member of the Committee for a New Society for Health Technology Assessment that declared the establishment of HTAi in 2003. Since the establishment of HTAi, Wija has been actively involved in many activities. She served on the HTAi Board (2007-2010), was co-chair of the Interest Group on Ethics (2012-2017) as well as chair of the Committee on Stakeholder Engagement in the Society and its Activities (2016-2017). In addition, she was a member of the international scientific programme committee (ISPC) of several annual meetings and served as the scientific secretary of the HTAi Global Policy Forum from July 2016 until June 2019.

Currently, she is a member of the HTAi Scientific Development and Capacity Building Advisory Committee, and member of several Interest Groups (HTA in Developing Countries, Patient & Citizen Involvement, and Ethics). She is also associate editor of the International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care. Finally, she is the co-chair of the joint HTAi-ISPOR Task Force on Deliberative Processes for HTA.