Opportunities

There are no job opportuities within HSRU at the moment but please check back soon as opportunities can arise at any time.

University of Aberdeen job opportunities can be viewed here.

Experts from our Clinical Trials Unit (CHaRT) and HSRU deliver a 12 week short course on Designing Real World Trials. 

This course takes you through the process of designing a randomised controlled trial (RCT). The course will focus on trials in the evaluation of real-world healthcare and public health settings.  The course aims to develop your knowledge and awareness of how to design a fair test, the appropriate use of trials and alternative trial designs, involving patients and the public, the logistics and practicalities of designing real-world trials and the role of clinical trials units.

To find out more visit the course page or contact Dr Kirsty McCormack

HSRU contributes teaching to the:

• Master of Public Health (MPH) 
• MSc in Global Health and Management 
• Research Methods for Health (PgCert). 

We offer a number of student projects each year to students on the MSc and Intercalated BMedSci courses.

Our Designing Real-World Trials short course will earn you 15 credits at Masters level (SCQF Level 11).

Staff in HSRU are fully supported in undertaking a PhD.  They are also encouraged to provide supervisory support for full or part-time PhD students. 

Current PhD opportunity

Changing behaviour to enable design and delivery of low carbon trials

Application Deadline: 16 January 2023

Supervisors: Dr Katie Gillies, Dr Eilidh Duncan and Prof Paula Williamson:

For details see: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/current-phd-opportunities-1640.php

Please click here to view all current University of Aberdeen opportunities. 

Below are our current HSRU ongoing PhD projects.

Ongoing projects

• Behavioural interventions to improve clinical trial recruitment and retention - Taylor Coffey
• Eliciting and incorporating patients’ opinions about missing data in randomised controlled trials - Sophie Greenwood
• Ewait: Effects of waiting times on quality of life, leisure activities and support needs in patients awaiting elective surgery in Scotland - Elisabeth Kirchner
• Interrupted times series (ITS) evaluation - Jemma Hudson
• Making it easier for trial teams to design inclusive trials - Azar Alexander-Sefre
• Optimising the responsible use of antibiotics - Shazia Yousuf
• ‘Soft’ Intelligence and Online Patient Feedback: Using Care Opinion for NHS Quality Improvement in Scotland - Emma Berry
• Understanding family experiences of inherited motor neurone disease (MND) - a qualitative study - Jade Howard

Examples of recently completed projects

• Complex designs in randomised clinical trials – a case study in dentistry - Beatriz Goulao
• IDENTIFY - The Investigation and Detection of Urological Neoplasia in Patients Referred with suspected urinary tract cancer: A Multicentre cohort study - Sinan Khadhouri
• What is the best way to avoid recruitment and retention problems in trials? - Adel El Feky
• Making clinical trials more efficient: consolidating, communicating and improving knowledge of patient recruitment interventions - Heidi Gardner
• Development of core clinical outcome measures for glaucoma interventions - Rehab Ismail
• Mobile Bone Density Scanning Services in the UK: an implementation and outcome evaluation - Rosemary Hollick
• The relationship between perceived decision difficulty, decision time and decision quality in General Practitioners’ decision-making - Nicola McCleary
• Towards improvement in care delivery in Huntington's disease (HD) - Daniela Rae

Clinical

HSRU actively mentors NHS Research Scotland (NRS) fellowships.  Recent NRS Clinical Fellows were:

Current

• Dr Callum Kaye, Consultant in Anaesthesia & Critical Care, NHS Grampian - BIS-TBI

Completed

• Mr Jan Jansen, Consultant Surgeon, NHS Grampian - Geospatial Evaluation of Systems of Trauma Care for Scotland.
   
• Dr Andy Keen, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, NHS Grampian - The application of psychological interventions (including mindfulness based approaches) to health and illness.

Non-clinical

HSRU actively encourages the development of staff through seeking prestigious research fellowships. Several funded research fellowships are supported including for example topics on the surgical trial methodology and methodological investigation of decision support for trial participation

Current

• Dr Eilidh Duncan - Improving healthcare through advancing the evolution of audit and feedback

We offer summer student work placements to current University of Aberdeen students wishing to improve their knowledge and experience in a research-focused environment.  Last summer we welcomed 5 interns.  Applications for this year have now closed.

There are lots of opportunities for patients and the public to be involved with our research.

You can find out more here