PhD candidate

Description of the research program

Transplantation is the preferred treatment for patients with end-stage kidney disease. However, many transplanted kidney transplants fail prematurely. This leads to lower quality of life for patients, higher healthcare costs for society and to re-transplantations, which further limits the availability of the already scarce donor organs.

The PERSIMMON (PERSonalized IMMunosuppression for ONe kidney for life) project aims to address the limited lifespan of kidney transplants from different perspectives. The multidisciplinary team includes medical specialists, psychologists, health scientists and health economists. It is funded by the Dutch Research Council (Nederlandse Organsatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, NWO).

As part of the project, we will investigate the potential health outcomes and cost-effectiveness of different improvements in the treatment of patients, from developing better immunosuppressive medication, personalizing drug regimens to psychological interventions to improve patients’ adherence to therapy. Since these strategies have not yet been developed, they cannot yet be subjected to a conventional health technology assessment (HTA) for the evaluation of their costs and effects. Instead, an early health technology assessment (eHTA) can help explore the potential of such a novel treatment strategy in terms of health-economic benefits, associated costs, and the desired balance between the two. An eHTA can help determine which areas of research are most promising from a health-economic perspective and help dismiss prohibitively expensive interventions or treatments of limited value. An eHTA requires building a health-economic model and scenario analyses, which will help determine the plausible range of health improvements and cost consequences. As more data become available, primarily from the PERSIMMON cohort, they will be used to replace assumptions in the model and move towards conventional HTA.

Job description
This vacancy is for a PhD candidate who will principally focus on costs, effects, economic evaluation and health technology assessment research to enhance the life of kidney transplants and improve the quality of life of patients. The candidate will develop the early HTA model and use it to explore short- and long-term effects of different treatment strategies in terms of life expectancy, quality of life, waiting lists, and the use of societal resources. In addition and depending on the candidate’s own ideas and preferences, research could be extended to issues of decision-making, healthcare workforce deployment, quality-of-life and well-being measurement.

Besides research responsibilities, the PhD candidate will participate in the teaching programs of Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (up to 0.15 fte).

The successful applicant for this position is expected to have a recent or almost completed MSc degree in health economics, economics or health sciences. The applicant should be a collaborator and flexible thinker, intensely interested in both health technology assessment (including health economics) and organ transplantation. The applicant should be motivated to participate in an interdisciplinary research program and learn in situations that are beyond their current capabilities. The ideal candidate has interests in quantitative methods and has a strong motivation for doing health technology assessment/health economic research in the field of organ transplantation. Knowledge of advanced economic evaluation and modelling are a distinct and desirable advantage. The applicant must have excellent communication and writing skills in English, and preferably in Dutch as well, and like to collaborate closely in an interdisciplinary group.

We offer you an internationally oriented and varied job in an enthusiastic team, with excellent working conditions in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU).

The preferred start date of this position is 01-SEP-2025 and you will be based at Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM). This position is for 1 fte. The salary ranges from a minimum of € 2901 to a maximum of € 3707 gross per month Scale PhD on a fulltime basis (38 hours), in accordance with the CAO-NU. The contract is entered into for the duration of 1.5 years, with a possible extension to 4 years.

Everything else we offer you, you can find below!

• Everything you need for a good work-life balance: the option to work from home in consultation with your manager, 41 days of paid leave with a 40 hour contract, 8% holiday pay and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus, and a significant discount on a subscription for our on-campus sports centre!
• Sustainable, inclusive and diverse work environment with an open culture, where you can be yourself and we pay attention to each other and to the world around us. Make the most of our bicycle budget, or join networks such as Young@EUR, FAME or QuEUR.
• Time and space for your development in the broadest sense: development days and a personal career budget and free access to our university library.
• Good pension with ABP that EUR contributes 2/3rds towards, discounts on various collective insurances with Zilveren Kruis Achmea, Loyalis, and Allianz, and compensation for travel, working from home and home internet use.
• Are you currently combining your job with parenthood, or do you want to do so in the future? EUR offers partially paid parental leave and fully paid additional birth leave for partners, and our campus features a daycare (daycare not paid for by EUR).
• Moving to the Netherlands for your job with EUR? Then you may be eligible for the 30%-ruling if you meet the requirements of the Belastingdienst (Dutch tax agency), and with our Dual Career Programme we will also help your partner find the right job for them.

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is an internationally oriented university with a strong social orientation in its education and research, as expressed in our mission ‘Creating positive societal impact’. EUR is home to 4.100 academics and professionals and almost 33.000 students from more than 140 countries. Everything we do, we do under the credo The Erasmian Way – Making Minds Matter. We’re global citizens, connecting, entrepreneurial, open-minded, and socially involved. These Erasmian Values function as our internal compass and create EUR’s distinctive and recognizable profile. From these values, with a broad perspective and with an eye for diversity, different backgrounds and opinions, our employees work closely together to solve societal challenges from the dynamic and cosmopolitan city of Rotterdam. Thanks to the high quality and positive societal impact of our research and education, EUR can compete with the top European universities. www.eur.nl.

Faculty / Institute / Central service
Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM) is leading in the Netherlands with its education and research activities, focused on policy and management topics in healthcare. ESHPM offers a bachelor's degree programme, five master's degree programmes, a bridging programme for lateral entrants and post-academic education, serving more than 1600 students. At ESHPM, research and education are closely linked. Knowledge and experience from various scientific disciplines such as economics, law, social-medical sciences, organisational sciences and public administration are brought together and applied in healthcare. ESHPM is housed in the Bayle (J) Building on the Woudestein campus of Erasmus University Rotterdam and has strong ties with Erasmus MC.

The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) department within ESHPM, and its linked contract research institute IMTA, are distinguished by and internationally renowned for independent and excellent research in HTA, health economics and health outcomes research. The HTA department contributes to important and influential methodological innovations in these areas. It is dedicated to stimulating the use of cost-effectiveness information in healthcare decision making. The department is responsible for teaching HTA in several courses of the bachelor Health Policy and Management, the master programmes Health Economics Policy and Law (HEPL), and Health Economics (HE), and the European master programme Health Economics and Management (EUHEM).