Ecraid - Your Gateway to Vaccination Studies in the Netherlands
A New Era for Vaccination Studies in the Netherlands: An Interview with Ecraid's New Site Management Organisation Manager, Eveline Verheijen
Ecraid has its own dedicated team based in the Netherlands that conducts vaccination studies as a site on behalf of both private and public partners.
On 1 July 2025, Eveline Verheijen joined as Site Management Organisation (SMO) Manager. We spoke with her about the site, her team, and her vision for the future of vaccination studies at Ecraid.
During her studies in biomedical sciences and immunology and throughout her career, Eveline developed a strong interest in clinical trials. She transitioned from Chief Operations Officer at a CRO to a Senior Project Manager role at Ecraid.
“What attracted me to Ecraid is that it is a relatively small organisation with an appealing, engaging culture. We work here with an international, highly educated team that’s full of passion.”
So, when the next opportunity arose, she did not hesitate. Managing Ecraid’s own site was a natural fit for her combination of medical and business backgrounds.
Our Own Site
The Utrecht site is a distinctive part of Ecraid. Although the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) already has a network of more than 1,250 hospitals, Utrecht is the only site which Ecraid operates itself, receiving participants for research.
Eveline explains:
“Having our own site here developed historically out of UMC Utrecht (University Medical Center Utrecht). At the same time, we believe it’s crucial for Ecraid to keep in-house the knowledge and experience of what it means to run a study in practice. We share those insights from the site with project managers who coordinate large European studies.”
Top Performance
Eveline says her team is often the top-performing site in studies.
“We focus strongly on recruiting large numbers of participants in a short time, with high quality and, very importantly, with a lot of dedication to the study participants. We also possess the necessary quality and capacity to serve as a coordinating site. In that role, we ensure that other hospitals and General Practitioners (GPs) in the Netherlands also recruit participants or refer patients to our own site.”
As an academic-rooted NGO, Ecraid, according to Eveline, inspires trust and fosters such collaborations. For companies looking to study new vaccines, Ecraid is an attractive partner for other reasons too. Ecraid has an outstanding network of Key Opinion Leaders, providing access to talented scientists and Principal Investigators both in the Netherlands and abroad.
Database of 12,000 Healthy People
Ecraid has another valuable asset: a database of 12,000 healthy individuals. Eveline says:
“People in the database have actively signed up and are therefore well motivated to take part. Some have already participated in multiple studies. The database and motivated participants enable us to start a study quickly.”
For recruitment beyond the database, Eveline can rely on Ecraid’s communications team, which coordinates targeted online campaigns and advertising in local media to recruit more participants. These participants can register via our dedicated website.
A Mix of Private and Public Funding
In addition to the ongoing study for a potentially improved influenza vaccine (and others), new vaccination studies are in the pipeline for next year. Eveline: We also have the capacity to scale up quickly - because as a team we can switch gears very flexibly. Our doctors, nurses, project managers and assistants are partly on staff and partly freelancers who work with us regularly. That allows us to scale up or down rapidly.”
Which studies would Eveline most like to secure?
“Personally, I value having a mix of privately and publicly funded studies in our portfolio. It’s gratifying when studies can make a real difference for people. I’m also particularly enthusiastic about studies from innovative biotech or pharma: new modalities that create new opportunities.”
Bringing More Studies to the Netherlands
What is Eveline’s long-term ambition?
“We see that the Netherlands still lags in the number of vaccination studies, for example, compared with Belgium. We aim to introduce more vaccination studies to the Netherlands, serving as a coordinating site. There seems to be a perception that things move more slowly here. With the Clinical Trial Regulation, study approval timelines have now been harmonised across countries in Europe. But Ecraid can work fast in providing start-up documents, signing the Clinical Trial Agreement and hitting the ground running.”
A Clear, Forward Strategy
Eveline’s ambition to position the Ecraid site as a leading coordinating centre - one that can effectively bypass perceived national delays - underpins a clear strategy for the coming years. By leveraging its dedicated volunteer registry, academic roots, and flexible team structure, Ecraid is set not only to attract more vital vaccination studies to the Netherlands but also to accelerate the development of critical public health interventions.