As the successful candidate for this PhD project, you will be participating in the IMI Conception consortium (www.imi-conception.eu), a ground-breaking pan-European partnership between 88 pharmaceutical companies, academia and government agencies funded by the EU Innovative Medicines Initiative. This consortium is developing an ecosystem for generating real world evidence on the safety of drugs in pregnancy and during breast feeding from health data. Your project involves developing analytical and visualization tools to rapidly and reliably transform heterogeneous and dispersed health data into reliable evidence. Your key tasks will involve working with data access providers around Europe to gather detailed knowledge on the structure and content of local data, co-creating extraction transformation and loading (ETL) scripts, supporting the transformation of local data into a common data model, conducting and interpreting quality assessment of the data in the common data model, supporting the creation of R-scripts to transform data into analysis tables, and working with pharmacoepidemiologists and clinicians to create statistical analysis plans and visualization tools.

As the ideal candidate for this PhD project, you have an MSc in Epidemiology, Statistics, Data Science or a BSc in Econometrics, and preferably experience in the field of analysis of large health data. You are able to program in R efficiently. Proven communication skills, writing ability, strong problem solving skills, and fluency in English are essential, knowledge of Dutch is preferable but not essential. Not only are you able to work independently within a multidisciplinary team, you are also interested in collaborating with different partners and stakeholders, both locally and internationally.

Fixed-term contract: temporary appointment for 1-3 years.

For this 100% post, the maximum salary will be € 3.103,-. This will be a temporary appointment for 1 year with a possible extension to 3 years.

University Medical Centre Utrecht

With over 1,100 beds and more than 11,000 employees, the University Medical Center Utrecht is one of the largest academic health care centers in the Netherlands. Our aim is to improve. Our patients’ health, but also our students and employees. Whether you are a doctor or a business economist, a researcher or a SAP-specialist: working with us means having a job that matters, access to the best facilities and the opportunity to grow as a professional and contribute towards innovative health care.

Scientific research at the UMC Utrecht is rooted in the world around us. We listen to people; the wishes and needs of patients come first. Together with our national and international partners, we invest in innovation and research in order to ensure that our care remains of the highest quality. Focus is pivotal in this, which is why we have concentrated our research in six programs:

·       Brain

·       Infection & Immunity

·       Circulatory Health

·       Personalized Cancer Care

·       RM & Stem Cells

·       Child Health

Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care

The Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care at the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMC Utrecht) has a specific interest in Real World Evidence principles and methods. The Julius Center aspires to take an international leadership role in obtaining and disseminating knowledge in the field of health sciences and primary care medicine. It has acquired a leading position by focusing on three pillars: ground-breaking research, successful education programs and academic primary care. The Julius Global Health group aims to build human capacity and infrastructures to improve health globally.