Learning and Development Opportunities for Researchers and Trialists
The Network, and its member CTUs, are committed to sharing their knowledge of best practice in clinical trials research from the absolute fundamentals of trial development and management to the use of the latest novel trial designs.
Below you can find out about some of the upcoming learning and development opportunities taking place across the Network.
Some events are open to all and allow for online registration and payment. Others are limited to staff at Registered CTUs.
Use the links below to find out more.
January 2025
Title: Independent Data Monitoring Committee
Date: 14 – 16 January 2025
Venue: Online
Cost: Academic/attendees from not-for-profit organisations £354; Attendees from for-profit organisations £425; Delegates resident in low middle income countries – £177
Do you or will you sit on IDMC or have a publicly funded trial that needs to be overseen by an IDMC?
If so, this popular course is for you, whether you are a clinician, statistician, or work in trial operations. The multidisciplinary Faculty will lead participants through many of the challenges and complex issues associated with reviewing accumulating data from clinical trials and making recommendations. The course covers the practical and statistical issues that you need to consider when setting up and running an IDMC. Using lectures, group discussions, and real-life case studies the course covers: roles and responsibilities of an IDMC, best practice, membership, the need for independence, and decision-making, recommendations and relationships to other committees.
We are particularly keen on receiving applications from clinicians, but if you could circulate amongst your teams, that would be great.
For more information and to register, please visit: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/clinical-trials-and-methodology/education/short-courses/idmc
Title: Practical Use of Multiple Imputation to Handle Missing Data in Stata
Date: 28 – 29 January 2025
Venue: 90 High Holborn, 2nd Floor, London WC1V 6LJ
Cost: Low Middle Income Countries (LMIC) – £185; Academic, students & external not for profit organisations – £370; External for profit organisations – £444
Course facilitators: Ian White and Tim Morris (MRC Clinical Trials Unit, UCL), and Angela Wood (University of Cambridge)
Course Overview:
Our aim in this course is to provide participants with the ability to analyse their own data using multiple imputation, but also to be aware of the pitfalls and limitations of the technique. We will give plenty of practical examples from our own experience of analysing data in medical research. We welcome participants bringing their own data and problems, and one session is dedicated to discussion of some participants’ data.
Who Should Attend:
The target audience for this course is researchers needing to analyse incomplete data:
• Attendees are expected to be familiar with running Stata from the command line (i.e. not using menus) at least to the level of fitting a regression model to complete data and producing simple graph
• No prior knowledge of multiple imputation is assumed.
• Participants will need a computer with the facility to run Stata 12
Requirements:
• Laptop with Stata 12 or higher
• Download course datasets before the course
Structure:
Two mornings (09:00-13:00), featuring nine lectures and eight practical sessions.
For more information and to register, please visit: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/clinical-trials-and-methodology/education/short-courses/missing-data
Title: Masterclass in the Design & Conduct of Complex Intervention Evaluations
Date: 29 January, 5 February, and 12 February 2025
Venue: Online
Cost: Early bird rate of £475 until Friday 20th December 2024, £525 for registrations after this date.
Course leaders: Michelle Collinson, Alexandra Wright, Hughes, Florence Day, Bethan Copsey & Professor Amanda Farrin, Leeds CTRU
Overview
Many health and social care interventions are complex and require careful consideration of key methodological challenges to enable robust evaluation. This workshop will provide attendees with a clear understanding of how to design and conduct a complex intervention evaluation and will include:
What makes an intervention complex?
• An overview of existing frameworks
• The role of pilot and feasibility studies
• Trial design for complex intervention evaluation
• Intervention implementation and the role of a process evaluation
• Practical considerations in the set-up and delivery of complex intervention trials
Who will benefit from this masterclass?
Clinicians, Health Professionals, Researchers, and NIHR Academy Members interested in planning or leading the design and conduct of evaluations of complex interventions.
Attendees should already have a good working knowledge of clinical trials and be keen to understand the challenges which are specific to evaluating complex interventions.
The masterclass is not suitable for those seeking an introduction to clinical trial design
Book online: https://tinyurl.com/5657k6ae
March 2025
Title: Sample size calculations in randomised clinical trials: beyond the basics
Date: 4 March 2025 (10am – 5pm)
Venue: MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL, 90 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6LJ
Cost: Academic / Non-profit Organisations – £325; For Profit Organisations – £555
Course leads will include: Dr Babak Choodari-Oskooei, Professor Ian White, Professor Andrew Copas, and Dr Matteo Quartagno
Sample size calculation for trial design
Sample size calculations arise in planning a study. It is one of the most important aspects of any design since it drives study timelines and the cost of undertaking the protocol. It determines the degree of required information to robustly answer the primary research questions in the study. If the sample size is too small, the study is likely to be inconclusive. Furthermore, increasing sample size during the study can be expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, it is imperative to accurately estimate the required sample size and trial timelines from the outset, and particularly for any funding application.
This course builds on a basic course in sample-size calculations such as the one provided by the ICH, and provides an overview of the underlying statistical theory for sample size calculations within the hypothesis testing framework. It addresses practical issues and statistical considerations when calculating sample sizes for a wide range of advanced trial designs and outcome distributions, including factorial, non-inferiority, group sequential, and clustered randomised clinical trials. It uses real advanced trial examples to calculate the sample size using the available user-written software in both R and Stata.
Potential Attendees
Those working on trials and study designs, which includes trialists, trial statisticians, clinicians and other scientists. Familiarity with the hypothesis testing framework (i.e., type I error rate, power, and various effect sizes) are essential. Familiarity with sample size calculation for simple/basic designs is desirable but not essential.
For more information, and to register, please click here.
Title: Introduction to Cancer Clinical Trials
Date: 24 March 2025 (10am – 1pm)
Venue: CRUK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre, 90 Tottenham Court Rd, London
Cost: Non-profit Organisations – £50; For Profit Organisations – £100
Course lead: Giulia Pellizzari, Lecturer, CR UK & UCL CTC
This session provides a general introduction to cancer clinical trials for staff new to academic cancer studies.
Participants will get an overview on what clinical trials are and how they can have a preventative, curative or palliative aim. The session covers the practical and scientific reasons why we need clinical trials, what are the differences between Phase I, II, II and IV studies and the different methods of randomization. The session also highlights how drug development trials in cancer differ from non-cancer studies and how the new era of targeted therapy and immunotherapy is changing the way cancer trials are designed.
For more information, and to register, please click here.
April 2025
Title: Tumour Response Assessment in Oncology: A guide to RECIST and iRECIST criteria
Date: 3 April 2025 (9:30am – 1pm)
Venue: Online
Cost: Non-profit Organisations – £50; For Profit Organisations – £100
Course lead: Giulia Pellizzari, Andre Lopes, & Emily Ambrose CR UK & UCL CTC and Dr Irfan UCLH
This is a newly developed training session that covers the following aspects:
– Introduction to response assessment criteria: why do we need standards
– RECIST criteria guidelines: how are these reflected in the Trial Protocol?
– RECIST and iRECIST: what are the differences?
– Imaging methods of response assessment
– Design and analysis of trials using response assessment
– Response assessment in the future generation of cancer trials
The course will dedicate ample time to the development of practical skills to learn how to evaluate response according to both RECIST 1.1 and iRECIST via the following activities:
– Calculation tables to evaluate response
– Real life CRFs review in groups
– Case study discussion
– Quizzes
For more information, and to register, please click here.
Title: Running a trial from concept to completion
Date: 28 April 2025 (10am – 1pm)
Venue: CRUK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre, 90 Tottenham Court Rd, London
Cost: Non-profit Organisations – £50; For Profit Organisations – £100
Course lead: Rubina Begum, Senior Project Manager, CR UK & UCL CTC
This session gives an introductory overview of all the steps required to design, set up and complete an academic cancer trial conducted in the hospital setting.
Participants will know what all the organisations and people involved in trials do and what permissions and documents need to be in place at different stages of a trial. The course is of most interest to those new to working in academic cancer clinical trials. Those currently working in the field who would like to gain an overview of what happens at other stages to the one familiar to them, may also benefit.
For more information, and to register, please click here.
Title: Methods for Evaluating Models, Tests and Biomarkers (MEMTAB) international conference
Date: 29 April – 1 May 2025
Venue: University of Birmingham, UK
Cost: Student £300, Academic £500, Industry £750
Website: MEMTAB 2025: “Methodology That Stands the Test”
MEMTAB is the leading international conference about methods to evaluate models, tests & biomarkers for healthcare. It allows debate & dissemination of best methods for developing, evaluating & identifying reliable models, tests & biomarkers for use in clinical practice.
In 2025, for our 7th International conference, we return to the University of Birmingham and raise the conference theme: “Methodology That Stands the Test”.
We want participants to push our understanding of what constitutes the research evidence needed for models, tests and biomarkers to be reliably endorsed, communicated and deployed in practice.
Registration and abstract submission is now open. Deadline for abstracts is 12th January 2025.
For enquiries, email memtab@bham.ac.uk
May 2025
Title: Entering patients into cancer clinical trials
Date: 15 May 2025 (10am – 1pm)
Venue: CRUK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre, 90 Tottenham Court Rd, London
Cost: Non-profit Organisations – £50; For Profit Organisations – £100
Course lead: Laura Hughes, Trial Manager, CR UK & UCL CTC
This session gives a comprehensive overview of the clinical pathways cancer patients can take to be eventually referred for trial entry.
The first part of the session spans across the diagnostic methods and staging of cancer and gives a brief overview of the common tests carried out prior to trial treatment. In the second part of the session participants will learn about the importance of ensuring only eligible patients enter a trial and how eligibility criteria help to safeguard patients and differ amongst different phases of trials. They will also learn the importance of assessing treatment compliance and how every clinical intervention comes with a different set of challenges in collecting data about patient compliance.
For more information, and to register, please click here.
June 2025
Title: Navigating Cancer Clinical Trials: Essential Knowledge for Statisticians
Date: 3 – 4 June 2025
Venue: CRUK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre, 90 Tottenham Court Road, W1T 4TJ
Cost: (Early bird rates) Non-profit Organisations – £200; For Profit Organisations – £350
Course aim
This two day training course aims to provide participants with an introduction to the biology, diagnosis, staging, and treatment of cancer, with a focus on how these factors influence the key outcome measures in cancer clinical trials, such as adverse events, treatment response, survival rates, and other time-to-event endpoints.
The course will provide delegates an excellent opportunity to network with statisticians from other UKCRC registered clinical trial units.
Target audience
This is an introductory course suitable for recent MSc graduates or more experienced statisticians new to the field of cancer treatment and cancer trials.
Delegates do not need to have prior knowledge of cancer.
Learning outcomes
At the end of the course participants should have greater knowledge of:
– Cancer biology and its impact on choice of treatment, tumour spread and outcome measures
– Cancer diagnosis and staging and how these impact on pre-trial entry screening tests and eligibility criteria
– Commonly reported patients and tumour characteristics and issues in choosing appropriate stratification factors
– Cancer treatments and issues in reporting protocol compliance
– Adverse events due to cancer therapies and reporting these events
– Response criteria in solid and non-solid tumours and reporting response endpoints
– Issues in survival and time to event analyses
– The challenges of trials including novel targeted agent therapy
For further details, and to register, please click here.
Title: Cancer treatments and their side-effects – Compliance & Adverse Event Reporting
Date: 9 June 2025 (10am – 1pm)
Venue: CRUK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre, 90 Tottenham Court Rd, London
Cost: Non-profit Organisations – £50; For Profit Organisations – £100
Course lead: Giulia Pellizzari, Lecturer, CR UK & UCL CTC
This session is a basic introduction to cancer treatments and their most common side-effects and adverse reactions.
The course provides an overview on cancer surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy we well as insights on the mechanisms of action of targeted therapies such as monoclonal antibodies, small inhibitory molecules, CAR-T cell therapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors.
In the second part of the session, participants will learn about the mechanisms of toxicity linked to the different categories of cancer therapy and how these are managed. This course is not recommended for clinicians.
For more information, and to register, please click here.
July 2025
Title: Trial outcomes: what are we trying to measure?
Date: 3 July 2025 (10am – 1pm)
Venue: CRUK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre, 90 Tottenham Court Rd, London
Cost: Non-profit Organisations – £50; For Profit Organisations – £100
Course lead: Amy Kirkwood, Principal Statistician – Cancer Trials (Associate Professor) / Will Wilson, Senior Research Fellow – Senior Medical Statistician
This session, aimed at non-statisticians, will cover the most common primary outcomes measures used in early and late phase cancer trials.
Participants will learn what makes a good outcome measure, how outcomes measures are defined and what data need to be collected to assess the outcome, especially for tumour response assessment and time to event measures such as survival and disease (or progression) free survival.
For more information, and to register, please click here.
