Hester van de Bovenkamp is professor of Patient Sciences at ESHPM. The role of patients in healthcare isf her key research interest. She is involved in the development of  Patient Sciences as a field of expertise, which focuses on patient experiences, participation, and representation. The unique collection of patient stories  that Hester coordinates is an important basis for this research. Analyzing these stories through a combination of qualitative research and text mining enables in-depth understanding of patient experiences which can be translated to lessons for healthcare improvement.  She combines these insights with research focusing on related issues of health care governance, such as institutional layering, regulatory pressure, and reflexive governance. She studies for example how different levels of patient participation and representation interact, how rules can be established that enable person-centred care or how the input of citizens can be used in the shift towards more reflexive governance arrangements. Hester is member of many research collaboratives, in which research and practice are brought together by academics from different disciplines, patients, healthcare organizations and policy makers.

***Teaching** Within the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management I coordinate the HEPL course Comparative Health Policy, supervise Master theses and am involved as a lecturer in different courses in the Bachelor and Master programs.