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Current research projects

Studying our Master of Research (MRes) Science and Health allows you to focus your research interests on one or two areas of science and work towards translating your learning into research related outputs – such as a submission for a peer-reviewed publication; a peer reviewed research/knowledge transfer grant application, or a presentation.

MRes Science can be studied either full time (1-year) or part time (2-years). You will develop a wide variety of skills, experience and competence on this course, and the MRes will provide a thorough grounding for students moving towards Doctoral (PhD) studies, or pursuing research related activities as a career.

Please note this list of projects is not exhaustive and you'll need to meet and discuss the project you're interested in with a member of research staff before you apply.

MRes Science - Health and Care Professions research projects:

Reporting bias – can we trust medical science?

Supervisor: Dr Simon Kolstoe

Reporting bias occurs when the decision of how to publish a study is influenced by the direction of its results. It is a well-recognized issue that is extremely topical as incomplete or misleading reports of trials and experiments have the potential to undermine evidence based medicine. Although the problem is becoming better known, it is still not clear what the solution might be. This is mainly because previous work has shown how difficult it is to even know that some trials have occurred let alone getting access to the original protocols to determine if the trials have been communicated accurately. This project will continue work looking at clinical projects submitted to an ethics committee and determining whether the researchers publish the results, and if so if they publish the originally specified outcomes. The project will suit students with a science or clinical background who are seeking to move into journalism, medical writing, science communication and/or regulatory and government bodies.

Published work from previous MRes student:

  • Begum R. and Kolstoe S.E. (2015) Can UK NHS research ethics committees effectively monitor publication and outcome reporting bias? BMC Medical Ethics 16:51. DOI: 10.1186/s12910-015-0042-8

Consistency in research ethics review

Supervisor: Dr Simon Kolstoe

Consistency is taken to mean that, for any specific application, Research Ethics Committees (RECs) give the same decision for at least roughly the same reason. RECs have occasionally been criticised for exhibiting an unjustifiable level of variation or inconsistency in their decisions. This is supported by academic papers that discuss variation in decision-making by RECs as well as evidence provided by the National Research Ethics Service’s Shared Ethical Debate exercises (ShED).

Recent ShED reports have shown that presenting RECs with the same application results in a range of opinions being given - both in terms of opinion type (such as provisional, unfavourable and favourable (+/- additional conditions) among others) and in the reasons cited for their opinion. This project will use the method of thematic analysis to analyse data from ShED’s in order to determine key themes that lead to REC inconsistencies. The project will suit students with a science or clinical background who are interested in learning about qualitative research and perhaps with an interest in science policy.

Published work from previous MRes student:

  • Trace, S. and Kolstoe S.E. (2017) Measuring Inconsistency in Research Ethics Committee Review. BMC Medical Ethics 18:65. DOI: 10.1186/s12910-017-0224-7

Other Research Projects

Find out more about current research projects in science and health:

Please note, this list is not exhaustive and you'll need to meet and discuss the project you're interested in with a member of research staff before you apply.