Senior Research Associate in Prostate Cancer Health Services Research

The role

The Prostate Cancer Health Services Research Transition Fellowship at Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol offers an excellent career development opportunity for new post-graduates (those having completed a PhD programme in the last 12 months) to participate in a fixed-term set of projects linked to prostate cancer health services research, with the ultimate aim of strengthening your track record to make you highly competitive to apply for an externally funded, personal research training fellowship, such as those run by the MRC, Welcome or Cancer Research UK.

You will join our collaborative, multidisciplinary team of prostate cancer research scientists and PhD students in Bristol, in a lively and engaging research environment. You will develop your experience and skills in medical statistics applied to epidemiology, and in public health research, through secondary analyses of world-leading ongoing randomised controlled trials (RCTs), the CAP prostate cancer screening RCT and the ProtecT prostate cancer treatment RCT. Your research will be aimed at answering key questions to inform national and international prostate cancer screening and treatment policy.

You will benefit from being part of the vibrant research environment at Bristol Medical School, and work closely with other research groups based here, and in the University more widely. The department is home to senior statisticians with international reputations in their fields including Professor Julian Higgins (systematic reviews), Professor Chris Metcalfe (evaluation of public health interventions), Professor Jonathan Sterne (systematic reviews, causal analysis), Professor Martin (cancer epidemiology), Professor Jenny Donovan (social medicine, prostate cancer health services research) and Professor Kate Tilling (causal analysis).

What will you be doing?

You will have the opportunity to engage with a range of research activities with the purpose of developing new skills or developing an individual research vision through these projects.  You will receive academic and career guidance and support from senior academic staff, and you will also be encouraged to engage in a range of training and development courses designed to develop your competency, skills, confidence and ability.

Examples of possible projects the post holder could choose are: 

• Calculating over-diagnosis based on calculating the number of men who were detected by screening whose prostate cancer would never have contributed to their mortality if it had never been detected.
• Defining high-risk prostate cancer for risk stratification into screening.
• Computing ethnic difference in risk and mortality of prostate cancer, to inform risk-stratified screening.
• Prognosis of high-risk prostate cancer in contemporary settings.  
• Investigation of temporal trends of PSA testing rates in the UK. 

The transition fellowship is aimed at early career researchers who want to consolidate knowledge and skills acquired in recent postgraduate training (PhD). Those with a suitable background for example, experience in health data science, medical statistics, epidemiology, or public health research, and who have submitted their thesis are encouraged to apply.

We recently launched our strategy to 2030 tying together our mission, vision and values.

The University of Bristol aims to be a place where everyone feels able to be themselves and do their best in an inclusive working environment where all colleagues can thrive and reach their full potential. We want to attract, develop, and retain individuals with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives – particularly people of colour, LGBT+ and disabled people - because diversity of people and ideas remains integral to our excellence as a global civic institution.

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