The University of Birmingham's Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Science and AI and Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) are working in partnership to pilot new approaches to entice skilled graduates from quantitative disciplines to consider health data science, to address the national skills gap.
Health Data Immersion Week - May 2023
Health Data Immersion Week - Experimental and Observational Methods for Health Data Science
Register interest
As an emerging modern discipline, health data science requires diverse skills in mathematics, programming, and data analysis – skills commonly found in graduates with academic backgrounds in subjects such as physics, engineering, mathematics and computer science. However, while there are some schemes to enable these disciplinary switches, they happen most often by chance or circumstance.
Recent research by HDR UK (The Great UK PhD Data Science Survey) identified that many graduate students received little or no training in how their skills could be applied to other disciplines, including health data science. This pilot programme will develop bespoke training courses that will provide insight into health data science for graduates in the quantitative sciences.
“I was originally trained as an engineer and switched to health data science as part of a Centre for Doctoral Training. Most of my original course mates are no longer working in health or even in research, and my current colleagues have often entered into health data science opportunistically after completing their PhDs in other subjects and discovering the relevance of their knowledge for solving biological and health problems.”
Professor Christopher Yau
(Pilot Co-Director), University of Oxford and Health Data Research UK
Health Data Immersion Weeks
As part of this programme, in 2023 we are delivering a series of intensive courses (or ‘immersion weeks’), intended to enable graduates with advanced skills in mathematics and computational science to gain insight into key topics in health data science.
If you are considering a career in health data science, have recently transferred from another discipline or are already working in health data science but want to widen your knowledge, our courses are designed to provide a rapid introduction to key areas:
- Working with Real-world Health Data (in collaboration with the PIONEER Health Data Hub) - 27 to 31 March 2023 - Find out more (applications now closed)
- Experimental and Observational Methods for Health Data Science - 15 to 19 May 2023 - Find out more & register interest.
Developed by subject specialists and supported by University of Birmingham Teaching Fellow Dr Ben McCanna (a Theoretical Physicist by background who has himself recently bridged the disciplinary gap), these courses aim to identify and address participants’ gaps in knowledge, which can be key obstacles to changing disciplines.
If you would like more information or have any queries about the immersion weeks, please email dsai@contacts.bham.ac.uk.
For further information about HDR UK, the background to this pilot, and how these activities might be scaled up to provide a comprehensive national offering for health data science training, please visit HDR UK.
“I moved to health data science following a PhD in Theoretical Physics following a chance conversation with an academic already working in the area. I’d never considered working in the area before this and was really surprised to discover how the skills I’d developed during my PhD mapped to problems in health data research. It’s surprisingly common for those of us working in this area to have started our careers on a different path.”
Professor Iain Styles
(Pilot Co-Director), University of Birmingham
