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.
July 2026
Title: Patient Information Sheet Online Workshop – Making Patient Information Sheets clear and accessible
Date: 7 July 2026
Venue: Via Zoom (10:00 – 12:30)
Cost: £50 (non-profit organisations) £100 (for-profit organisations)
Patient Information Sheets (PIS) are a key document for potential participants to make an informed decision about whether to take part in a clinical study. While there is clear guidance from the Health Research Authority (HRA) on content and regulatory requirements, PIS are customised for each clinical trial and the specific patient population. Choosing the right language and format for patient facing materials for research studies and clinical trials still greatly varies and depends on the skills and experience of the team putting them together.
In this workshop attendees will gain valuable insights how to improve the format, language and delivery of the PIS working with clinical trial professionals and, patient and public representatives.
The workshop includes:
- an overview of the HRA guidance on the PIS design,
- an introduction to writing in plain English and accessibility
- a patient perspective
- group work in breakout rooms with trial professionals and patient and public representatives to review a draft PIS
Preparation: Review a draft PIS before the workshop (up to 1 hour preparation time).
After the course, attendees will receive a “PIS Checklist”: a summary of top tips when designing a Patient Information Sheet.
For further information, and to register, please click here.
Title: Designing and Conducting Pragmatic RCTs
Date: 13 – 17 July 2026 (with ongoing access to course materials and recordings for 5 months)
Venue: Online intensive live short course
Cost: £1,250 per delegate
Pragmatic Randomised Controlled Trial (RCTs) are the ‘gold standard’ test for evaluating whether a new intervention is better than an existing one and are routinely used in both real-world healthcare and public health settings. Academics working in the Bristol Trials Centre (BTC) and the University of Bristol (including those who are tutors on this course) have all been at the forefront of designing and implementing high quality pragmatic RCTs for this purpose. This course aims to provide an understanding of the essentials of designing, conducting and analysing pragmatic randomised controlled trials (RCTs). The course examines RCTs evaluating health and public health interventions in primary, secondary and community settings with individual and cluster randomised designs.
“The course was packed full of information and delivered by a range of presenters with varying experiences and expertise. The course provided insight on pragmatic RCTs as a whole and was insightful for providing a broad view of all considerations for RCTs” – Course feedback, May 2025
For further information, and to register, please click here.
August 2026
No events are currently listed.
September 2026
Title: Randomised Controlled Trials: A Guide to Design, Conduct, Analysis, Interpretation, and Reporting
Date: 7 – 11 September 2026
Venue: Merton College, University of Oxford
Cost: £1,850 per person
The Centre for Statistics in Medicine (CSM)’s Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT) Course is ideal for anyone planning or actively involved in RCTs for healthcare evaluation, particularly those early in their career or looking for a refresher course. This 5-day course uses a problem-based learning approach to provide a thorough grounding in the principles and practice of planning, conducting, analysing, reporting, and interpreting RCTs, mixing lectures and small-group practical work. The interdisciplinary faculty includes registered CTU directors, clinicians, and statisticians, all with a wealth of RCT experience.
Course objectives:
* Clarify the fundamental principles and practice of RCTs
* Present the optimal methodology to use in RCTs
* Examine the critical issues involved in planning, conducting, and completing a successful trial
* Provide a basic understanding of the statistics used to plan and analyse RCTs
* Teach critical appraisal skills and practice appraising RCT papers
Who should attend:
If you are planning or actively involved in trials, or are interested in furthering your knowledge of trial methodology, this course is for you. It is ideal for those early in their career or those looking for a refresher course, as it provides an overview of all elements of an RCT. We welcome applications from clinical and non-clinical researchers and other professionals allied to medicine.
Course fees: £1850. Fees include daily lunch and refreshments, a course dinner (Thursday evening), and a comprehensive delegate’s pack including all course materials.
Visit https://www.ndorms.ox.ac.uk/graduate-courses/courses/randomised-controlled-trial-course or email rct.course@csm.ox.ac.uk for more information or to register. Registration closes on 3 August 2026 or when the course is full, whichever is sooner.
October 2026
Title: Improving Clinical Trial Delivery: Investigator Site Staff
Date: 12 – 13 October 2026
Venue: Online (University of Birmingham)
Cost: £250 person
This two day programme is designed to build understanding and efficiency in the ongoing site management and delivery of open trials. It is aimed at site delivery staff. The teaching will be delivered through a combination of pre-recorded lectures; independent reading and live online sessions.
For sites to achieve their recruitment target on time, in compliance with the trial protocol and with the collection of complete and accurate data, experienced and trained staff are required. This 2-day programme will focus on the management of trials from the perspective of the Principal Investigator and the site delivery team. It will explore clinical trial challenges such as the factors that can affect successful participant recruitment, data quality and the challenges in the assessment and reporting of safety data. It will focus on the impact of protocol deviations on patient safety and data credibility and will improve comprehension of the rationale for specific trial activities.
For further information, and to book your place, please click here.
November 2026
Title: An Introduction to Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials: Statistics for Non-Statisticians
Date: 2 – 5 November 2026
Venue: Via Zoom (09:30 – 12:45)
Cost: £130 – Low & Middle Income Countries (LMIC), £245 – Academic / not-for-profit organisations, £320 – for-profit organisations
Course facilitators: Dr Laura Murphy, Yath Yogeswaran (UCL Innovative CTU)
This four-day course will provide an introduction to the principles and application of statistics in the randomised controlled trial (RCT) environment. It will explain what’s important and why, and enable understanding of statistical methods and analyses in RCTs.
Intended audience
Non-statisticians working in clinical trials who only have a basic level of statistical knowledge at present and wish to be more familiar with the meanings of common statistical terms used in clinical trials and the interpretation of results. Generally this course is aimed at people with less than 3 years’ experience in a Clinical Trials setting, although all applicants are welcome.
For further information, and to book your place, please click here.
Title: Clinical Trial Management: Maximising Effectiveness
Date: 16 – 17 November 2026
Venue: Birmingham
Cost: £250 per person
Course lead: Razia Meer-Baloch (Birmingham CTC)
This two-day programme will focus on the fundamentals of the project management of trials. The teaching will be delivered through a combination of pre-recorded lectures; independent reading and live online sessions.
Trials that are successfully delivered on time and to the recruitment target require the employment of good project management. High quality data is driven through data and quality management processes, and these must be combined with an understanding of the trial safety reporting requirements, and the ongoing assessment and evaluation of trial risks.
The programme will explore how to plan for and respond to clinical trial challenges, maximising effectiveness, efficiency and data quality. It is aimed at individuals involved in trial co-ordination and management who have some experience, and who would like to build on this skill set.
For further information, and to book your place, please click here.
Title: Research Methods: Introduction to Randomised Controlled Trials in Healthcare
Date: 23 – 25 November 2026
Venue: Edgbaston Campus, University of Birmingham
Cost: £600 per person
Course leads: Razia Meer-Baloch (Birmingham CTU) and Dr Sara Brookes (CRUK CTU)
Clinical trials have huge societal impact, providing the best evidence of the effectiveness of healthcare, social care and public health interventions. Research through clinical trials is a growing global business in academic institutions, industry, the NHS and across public health organisations. To ensure efficient trials that reach successful completion, trial staff require a solid grounding and knowledge of the design, conduct, analysis and interpretation of clinical trials.
This face-to-face 3-day course in Research Methods: Introduction to Randomised Controlled Trials in Healthcare organised by the Birmingham Centre for Clinical Trials (BCCT) provides an overview of the research process from idea and design to analysis and publication. This programme will be designed to combine theory with opportunities to apply knowledge to practice, and will be delivered in person with additional access to recordings and self guided readings.
Birmingham is well recognised for its research methods teaching with over 20 years’ experience of delivering short course CPD teaching in research methods, in addition to running a Master’s programme in Clinical Trials (MSc/PGDip/PGCert).
For further information, and to book your place, please click here.
Title: Statistical and practical aspects of the design and analysis of Multi-Arm Multi-Stage (MAMS) Platform Trials
Date: 25 November 2026
Venue: Via Zoom (12:00 – 17:00)
Cost: £107 – Low- & Middle- Income Countries (LMIC), £214 – Academics / from not-for-profit organisations, and £257 – for-profit organisations
Potential Attendees:
This workshop is aimed at trial statisticians, regulators and clinicians who want to understand more about the design and analysis of multi-arm multi-stage (MAMS) platform trials, or those who are new to the area. This includes statisticians looking to design MAMS platform trials, or clinicians and researchers wanting to understand the statistical issues in designing such trials in the phase III setting.
There will be an opportunity for delegates to send questions in advance so that they can be addressed at the workshop.
The workshop aims to help participants:
- understand the motivation behind these designs
- learn how to choose the design parameters and stopping boundaries, both for lack-of-benefit and efficacy
- learn how to deal with overwhelming efficacy
- learn about stopping randomisation to research arms
- learn how to add a new research arm, and how to control Type I and II error rates in both pre-planned and unplanned addition of a new research arm
- learn about MAMS designs in which arms are ranked and selectively chosen to continue
- learn how the programs written in Stata software can be used to design MAMS trials with time-to-event and binary outcomes
MAMS platform trials:
Typically, in these protocols, randomisation is stopped to insufficiently active treatment arms at interim stages and new research arms can be added during the course of the trial. MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL is a leader not only in the design, but also in implementation and analysis of such trials. The MAMS approach is one of the few adaptive designs being deployed in a number of trials and across a range of disease in the phase III setting, including STAMPEDE (prostate cancer), CompARE (TB), TRUNCATE-TB (TB), RAMPART (renal cancer), and ROSSINI-II (wound surgery) .
Structure of the workshop:
This half-day workshop consists of two main sessions. The first session of the workshop provides an overview of the design issues involved in MAMS platform protocols. The second session focuses on the implementation of the statistical aspects of such trials and provides guidelines on the design and analysis of such trials. It will also explore further design issues such as adding new research arms, and designs in which research arms are ranked and selectively chosen to continue.
Software and examples:
In both sessions, the methods are explored using real platform trial examples, and using programs written in Stata software – i.e. the nstage suite in Stata for trials with binary and time-to-event outcomes, which can be usefully partnered with artpep for time-to-event projections.
The workshop concludes with a discussion session when participants have the opportunity to discuss specific design and analysis questions with the panel. For this reason, we encourage those planning to attend the workshop to submit their questions to the above email in advance, any time after registration.
Faculty will include: Dr Babak Choodari-Oskooei, Professor Mahesh Parmar
Please click here to register.
December 2026
No events are currently listed.
January 2027
No events are currently listed.
February 2027
Title: Practical use of multiple imputation to handle missing data in Stata
Date: 9 – 12 February 2026
Venue: Online via Zoom
Cost: Early Bird Offer: £161 – LMIC Countries; £327 – Academic/not-for-profit; £394 – Attendees from or-profit organisations / Standard fees (after 1 September 2026): £175 LMIC Countries; £355 – Academics/not-for-profit; £428 – Attendees from for-profit organisations.
Course leads: Ian White (UCL Innovative CTU), Angela Wood (University of Cambridge), Tra My Pham (UCL Innovative CTU)
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.
This course is loosely based on our tutorial in Statistics in Medicine.
Target audience
The target audience 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 graphs
* No prior knowledge of multiple imputation is assumed.
Find out more, and register, here.
March 2027
No events are currently listed.
Flexible Online Training
Title: Introduction to Randomised Controlled Trials
Date: Anytime
Venue: Online course on FutureLearn
Cost: Available via subscription
Course Lead: Razia Meer-Baloch, Birmingham CTU
Discover the importance of trials in evidence-based medicine and learn about the trial lifecycle from conception to publication.
This course has been built by a team of expert research trial staff from the Birmingham Centre for Clinical Trials within Birmingham University. This team will guide you through the entire process for conducting randomised controlled trials and how to report results that can then be used to inform guidelines.
This course is designed for new or existing clinical trial staff. It may also be of interest to anyone looking to learn more about the wider randomised controlled trials process.
For further information, and to register, please click here.
Title: Introduction to Data Management in Clinical Research
Date: Anytime
Venue: Online course on FutureLearn
Cost: Available via subscription
Course Lead: Razia Meer-Baloch, Birmingham CTU
Improve the quality of medical research with clinical data management tools to collect, manage, and store trial data effectively.
This introductory course is for anyone setting up clinical trials and responsible for ensuring trial data integrity, such as aspiring chief investigators, trial coordinators, managers, data managers, and administrators. No prior knowledge is needed to join.
For further information, and to register, please click here.
Title: Statistics in Clinical Trials for the Non-Statistician
Date: Anytime
Venue: Online course on FutureLearn
Cost: Available via subscription
Course Lead: Sara Brookes, CRUK CTU
Discover the crucial role statistics plays in clinical trials and enhance your understanding of clinical trial data and analysis.
This course is ideal for individuals involved in clinical trials, whether in academia or the NHS, as well as those without a background in statistics. This includes aspiring chief investigators, research nurses, trial coordinators, trial managers, data managers, quality assurance team members, trial administrators, and other members of trial teams such as qualitative researchers or health economists.
The course is introductory with no prior knowledge or experience of statistics required.
For more information, and to register, please click here.
Post-Graduate Degrees
Title: Clinical Trials MSc/PGDip/PGCert
Institution: University of Birmingham
Teaching Staff: Razia Meer-Baloch, Birmingham CTU and Sara Brookes, CRUK CTU
This Master’s degree (Also available as a postgraduate diploma and certificate with modules available as standalone options) provides students with an excellent foundation in clinical trials, covering the theoretical and practical aspects of the design, conduct, analysis and interpretation of clinical trials, promoting efficient trials that reach successful completion. The programme aims to produce skilled specialist trials staff in the existing workforce and expert trial Chief Investigators of the future.
This course will run over 12 months in a full-time-mode. There’s also scope to undertake the programme on a part-time basis or flexibly (up to 5 years).
For further information please click here.
