PhD Scholarship Opportunities with the Australian Living Evidence Collaboration

at  Monash University

THE OPPORTUNITY

The Australian Living Evidence Collaboration (ALEC) is a world-first collaboration that is bringing together leading experts in evidence synthesis, guideline development and digital technologies to build a next generation system for delivering reliable, accessible, up-to-date evidence in health.
We are based in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University, and run projects and do research that enables health decision-makers (consumers, health professionals, policymakers) to have access to the best available research evidence to support their decisions, whenever they need it.
In 2024, ALEC is funding at least one PhD opportunity for an excellent student to join our team and help us learn how to do this better. We welcome expressions of interest from students with an excellent academic track record, strong written and verbal communication skills, and a passion for doing research with real impact. More information about admission requirements is available here.

We offer PhD students:

• Seriously lovely and supportive supervisors
• A fun, collaborative team
• Deep international networks
• Real-world implementation of your work

Project-specific PhD opportunities commencing in 2024 are available for the following research projects:
Project 1 - Consumer focused research in living evidence - with Dr Anneliese Synnot

ALEC has a program of work exploring consumer (patient) engagement in the development of living evidence, and co-production of resources to support use of living guidelines by consumers. We are interested in research in areas such as:

• The nature and extent of consumer involvement in the development and dissemination of Australian clinical practice guidelines
• Barriers and facilitators of living guideline dissemination to patients: the guideline developer and evidence intermediary perspective
• The role of artificial intelligence in (living) guideline dissemination to consumers
• Piloting living guideline dissemination to patients using an ALEC guideline

Project 2 - Research integrity in living guidelines for pregnancy and postnatal care - with Dr Miranda Cumpston
ALEC is developing the LEAPP (Living Evidence for Australian Pregnancy and Postnatal care) guidelines. Like all guidelines, they rely on the integrity of the included research to ensure their recommendations are valid. Research integrity is increasingly recognised as a major challenge, with concerns including spin in research, selective reporting of results, and fabrication of results and studies. Research has identified high levels of potentially problematic studies in pregnancy.
This project will explore the impact of research integrity on the LEAPP guidelines, and the feasibility of integrating research integrity checks into guideline development. This may include development and piloting of integrity assessment methods, and evaluation of the impact of removal of problematic research on guideline recommendations. Your work will have real-world impact on pregnancy and postnatal care in Australia and contribute to an emerging body of international research.
Project 3 - What works for implementing living evidence into policy? - with Dr Samantha Chakraborty
Living evidence synthesis products such as living systematic reviews, living guidelines and living evidence briefs have enormous potential to rapidly influence policy and practice. To accompany emerging methods in developing living evidence syntheses, our team is exploring how living evidence can be optimised to have an impact on policy and practice. Projects may involve literature reviews, undertaking mixed methods research projects, coding of qualitative data across a range of topics including pregnancy and postnatal care, climate health, stroke and more. This program of work is set within the benefits from extensive networks in living evidence synthesis development and knowledge translation of both ALEC and Cochrane Australia.
Project 4 - Evaluation of living guidelines - with Dr Tanya Millard
ALEC is pioneering the development of the platforms, processes and partnerships needed to synthesise large volumes of research to develop and disseminate reliable, accessible, up to date evidence in the form of clinical practice guidelines, and related clinical flowcharts and decision tools to health professionals and policymakers faster, more efficiently and more effectively (i.e. living evidence) than traditional methods of evidence development. This living evidence approach to the synthesis and dissemination of evidence-based guidance is world-leading and has been demonstrated to be feasible and effective in clinical topics including COVID-19, stroke, diabetes, pregnancy arthritis and kidney disease.
We are committed to continuing to improve our living evidence products and development process, and undertake ongoing evaluation activities across each of our living guidelines to determine their impact and improve their development. This includes work to; identify factors to inform design, development and implementation; identify opportunities to increase guideline awareness, use, dissemination, and implementation; and to demonstrate the changes that can be attributed to the specific guidelines for consumers, clinicians, decision makers and policy makers. Projects are likely to involve literature reviews and mixed-methods research.

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

This opportunity is available to domestic students only. Candidates will need to fulfil the Monash University minimum requirements for admission to a PhD detailed here: www.monash.edu/admissions/entry-requirements/minimum.

Please refer the Job description for details