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Dr Heidi Gardner

Dr Heidi Gardner

Research Fellow

Overview
Dr Heidi Gardner
Dr Heidi Gardner

Contact Details

Telephone
work +44 (0)1224 438408
Email
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

PhD, Applied Health Sciences University of Aberdeen 2018
MSci, Pharmacology with Industrial Placement University of Aberdeen 2015

Latest Publications

  • An international core outcome set for evaluating interventions to improve informed consent to clinical trials: the ELICIT Study

    Gillies, K., Williamson, P. R., Entwistle, V. A., Gardner, H., Treweek, S., Campbell, M. K.

  • Developing the INCLUDE Ethnicity Framework: a tool to help trialists design trials that better reflect the communities they serve

    Treweek, S., Banister, K., Bower, P., Cotton, S., Devane, D., Gardner, H., Isaacs, T., Nestor, G., Oshisanya, A., Parker, A., Rochester, L., Soulsby, I., Williams, H. C., Witham, M. D.

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

    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

    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

    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.

View all Publications

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

Research

Research Areas

Specialisms

  • Creative Arts and Design
  • Health Sciences
  • Medical Sciences
  • Research Skills
  • Work Placement Experience (Personal Learning)

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Research Overview

My research spans various facets of trial conduct research, including participant recruitment, retention, outcome collection, communication both within trial teams and with  participants and the public, and equity, diversity and inclusivity in both the teams doing the work, and the participants within the trial population. I firmly believe that we can work to improve the efficiency of trials through effective dissemination and implementation of evidence, which will in turn improve participant experience of trials.

My work is multidisciplinary and I tend to use a mixed methods approach to ensure that research questions are tackled thoroughly. My research has included including pragmatic use of qualitative methodologies, concepts such as user-testing and user experience design which originated in design and marketing industries, and systematic reviews of non-randomised studies.

Research Funding and Grants

Dates Award holder(s) Funding body Title Value
July 2016-January 2018 Co-Applicant (PI: Prof Shaun Treweek, University of Aberdeen) Chief Scientist Office (Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research) Putting research methodology into practice: producing useful evidence about trial recruitment strategies for trial designers and recruiters

£26,322
May 2017 Co-Applicant (Group award, Lead: Dr Heather Morgan, University of Aberdeen) Public Engagement with Research Unit, University of Aberdeen –  Enabling Award Funds to support HSRU public engagement activity at May Festival 2017

£424.60
June 2017 Personal award Staff Development Fund. Institute of Applied Health Sciences, University of Aberdeen Funds to attend the Evidence Live conference in Oxford (2017)

£500
June 2017 Co-Applicant (Group award, Lead: Dr Heather Morgan, University of Aberdeen) Marie Curie Alumni Association, Scotland Chapter Funds to support HSRU public engagement activity in late 2017

£198.80
September 2017 Co-Applicant (PI: Prof Shaun Treweek, University of Aberdeen) Chief Scientist Office (Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research) Travel award (Global Evidence Summit, Cape Town, South Africa)

£750
March 2018 PI Winston Churchill Memorial Trust 2018 Fellowship Award for a project titled: Putting pants on the truth: Improving practice of UK sci-bloggers £8,200
 April 2018 Lead Applicant British Science Association Funds to support inaugural Soapbox Science Aberdeen event (May Festival 2018)  £300
April 2018 Lead Applicant May Festival Funds to support inaugural Soapbox Science Aberdeen event (May Festival 2018) £150
April 2018 Lead Applicant Public Engagement with Research Unit, University of Aberdeen –  Enabling Award Funds to support inaugural Soapbox Science Aberdeen event (May Festival 2018) £430
March 2019 - March 2021 Co-Applicant (PI: Prof Shaun Treweek, University of Aberdeen) Chief Scientist Office (Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research) A good use of time and money? Providing evidence for how effort is invested in primary and secondary outcome data collection in trials £224,213
Teaching

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Publications 

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