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The University of Edinburgh/Scottish eHealth Informatics Research Centre
(eHIRC)/Farr Institute PhD studentship

Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship within the Centre
for Population Health Sciences (CPHS: http://www.cphs.mvm.ed.ac.uk/) at
The University of Edinburgh. The PhD studentship will begin in October 2014.

Summary of project
Clinical trials constitute the best source of evidence to inform medical
and policy decisions. However, in addition to high costs involved,
several other practical issues have continually posed serious challenges
to successfully undertake clinical trials. There is now a pressing need
to increase the efficiency with which clinical trials are undertaken in
the UK and the increasing availability of digital health datasets offers
enormous opportunities in this respect. This studentship therefore aims
to investigate novel strategies to support the execution of trials and
maximise the utility of trial data, using asthma as an exemplar clinical
area.

The studentship will focus on exploring novel informatics-based
strategies that draw on the UK's electronic health records
infrastructure to support the efficient design, execution, analysis of
clinical trials for the prevention and management of long-term
conditions. Given the close alignment between the Scottish eHIRC/Farr
Institute and the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research in this project,
asthma will be used as an exemplar long-term condition.

Pre-application enquiries
Before making your application, you are encouraged to contact the PhD
supervisors for informal enquiries and to discuss your research proposal.

Lead Supervisor: Prof Aziz Sheikh [log in to unmask]

Co-Supervisor: Dr Bright Nwaru [log in to unmask]

Project partners
The successful candidate will be based in CPHS but will at the same time
benefit greatly from the strong inter-disciplinary environment offered
by partner institutes in this project; i.e. the Medical Research Council
funded Scottish eHIRC/Farr Institute, and the Asthma UK Centre for
Applied Research.

• Farr Institute:
The Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research is a collaboration to
harness health data for patient and public benefit by setting the
international standard for the safe and secure use of electronic patient
records and other population-based datasets for research purposes.
The Farr Institute comprises four nodes distributed across the UK and
led from the University College London (Farr Institute @ London),
University of Manchester (Farr Institute @ HeRC N8), Swansea University
(Farr Institute @ CIPHER), and the University of Dundee/Edinburgh’s
Bio-Quarter (Farr Institute @ Scotland).


• Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research (AUKCAR: www.aukcar.ac.uk):
A collaboration between the leading asthma researchers from 13
universities across the UK, led by the University of Edinburgh and Queen
Mary University of London, working with Asthma UK, people affected by
asthma, NHS partners and other organisations.
Main areas of research are:
1. Encourage good asthma control
2. Help maximise the benefits of treatment
3. Reduce asthma exacerbations and prevent asthma deaths

Requirements
• Applicants should have or be predicted to obtain 2:1 or higher in
relevant undergraduate degree
• Post-graduate degree, or its equivalent if outside the UK, in relevant
field is desirable
• Some background/experience in quantitative research (i.e. in
statistics, epidemiology, clinical trials or health services research)
is essential for this PhD
• Applicants must meet the entry requirements (including English
language proficiency) for acceptance onto the University of Edinburgh
CPHS 3-year PhD programme. Details at:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees?id=213&cw_xml=details.php
Following interview, the selected candidate will need to apply and be
accepted for a place on the CPHS PhD population Health Sciences programme
• UK/EU tuition fees only (any eligible non-EU candidates must fund the
remainder of the overseas tuition fee)

Funding
This is a University of Edinburgh and MRC funded award and will provide
an annual stipend for three years of £13,863 per year, plus University
fees for UK/EU students.
There will in addition be £1000 funding towards research costs per annum
and up to £300 conference/travel fees per annum.

Application procedure
Please provide in pdf format:
• Curriculum vitae
• a referenced outline of your research plan (maximum of 4 pages)
• degree certificate(s)
• marks for your degree(s)
• 2 academic references
Email to: [log in to unmask]

The closing date for applications is: Friday 22nd August 2014
Interviews will be held: August/September 2014 (interviews may be
conducted by videoconference or Skype).
The studentship will begin in October 2014.


Selected references:
Electronic health records: new opportunities for clinical research.
Coorevits et al. J Intern. Med 2013:274(6);547-60
Mining electronic health records: towards better research applications
and clinical care. Jensen et al. Nat Rev Genet 2012:13(6);395-405
Integrating electronic health records and clinical trials. M Kahn. 2010
http://www.esi-bethesda.com/ncrrworkshops/clinicalresearch/pdf/MichaelKahnPaper.pdf

van Staa TP, Dyson L, McCann G, et al. The opportunities and challenges
of pragmatic point-of-care randomised trials using routinely collected
electronic records: evaluations of two exemplar trials. Health Technol
Assess. 2014:18(43);1-146.





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