Contact Details

Telephone

work +44 (0)1224 438408

Email

heidi.gardner1@abdn.ac.uk

Address

The University of Aberdeen Health Services Research Unit,
University of Aberdeen,
3rd Floor, Health Sciences Building,
Foresterhill,
Aberdeen,
AB25 1SN

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Biography

I joined HSRU in 2015 as a PhD student funded by The Development Trust, and under the supervision of Prof Shaun Treweek and Dr Katie Gillies. My project focussed on improving the efficiency of clinical trials, with particular focus on participant recruitment. Following completion of my PhD, I worked for 6 months as a Research Assistant, supporting work on ImproveHD, PRioRiTy II and various other trial methodology projects.

Throughout my PhD I played an active role in HSRU's Public Engagement Group, co-leading and taking part in events across various Aberdeen Festivals (May Festival, TechFest, Explorathon). In July 2018 I was awarded the runner up prize for the Principal's Prize for Public Engagement in the Early Career Researcher category, and in 2019 I won the prize.

In 2018 I was named as a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow. As part of this Fellowship I designed and led a research project around the use of blogging to creatively communicate scientific ideas and processes. My brief hiatus from HSRU involved 3 months of fully funded travel to the USA, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong.

I returned to HSRU in March 2019 and since then I've worked as a Research Fellow leading the CSO-funded ORINOCO Project, which focusses on optimising the use of trial resources in relation to outcome collection. I've also worked on various Trial Forge related methods projects, including the INCLUDE Ethnicity Framework, The People's Trial, and DataCat. I'm passionate about accessibility and diversity in science, and have been actively working to pull that passion through into my trial methods work, pushing for a culture of inclusivity to increase diversity in trial participant populations.

Qualifications

Latest Publications

• Factors that impact on recruitment to randomised trials in health care: a qualitative evidence synthesis (Review)

  2020

  Houghton, C., Dowling, M., Meskell, P., Hunter, A., Gardner, H., Conway, A., Treweek, S., Sutcliffe, K., Noyes, J., Devane, D., Nicholas, J. R., Biesty, L. M.

• Non-randomised evaluations of strategies to increase participant retention in randomised controlled trials: A systematic review

  2020

  El Feky, A., Gillies, K., Gardner, H., Fraser, C., Ishaku, T., Treweek, S.

• Using systematic data categorisation to quantify the types of data collected in clinical trials: the DataCat project

  2020

  Crowley, E., Treweek, S., Banister, K., Breeman, S., Constable, L., Cotton, S., Duncan, A., El Feky, A., Gardner, H., Goodman, K., Lanz, D., McDonald, A., Ogburn, E., Starr, K., Stevens, N., Valente, M., Fernie, G.

• Trial Forge Guidance 2: how to decide if a further Study Within A Trial (SWAT) is needed

  2020

  Treweek, S., Bevan, S., Bower, P., Briel, M., Campbell, M., Christie, J., Collett, C., Cotton, S., Devane, D., El Feky, A., Galvin, S., Gardner, H., Gillies, K., Hood, K., Jansen, J., Littleford, R., Parker, A., Ramsay, C., Restrup, L., Sullivan, F., Torgerson, D., Tremain, L., von Elm, E., Westmore, M., Williams, H., Williamson, P. R., Clarke, M.

• A systematic review of non-randomised evaluations of strategies to improve participant recruitment to randomised controlled trials: [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]

  2020

  Gardner, H., Albarquoni, L., El Feky, A., Gillies, K., Treweek, S.

Prizes and Awards

2019 Cochrane's 30 Under 30
2019 University of Aberdeen's Principal's Prize for Public Engagement with Research - Early Career Award
2018 YWCA Scotland's 30 Under 30
2018 University of Aberdeen's Principal's Prize for Public Engagement with Research - Early Career Runner Up
2015 University of Aberdeen's Stewart Bourner Pharmacology Project Prize

Publications