Who we are

The idea for the website emerged as part of the initiative by the Working Group who developed the CONSORT Extension to Pilot and Feasibility Trials: Christine Bond, Michael Campbell, Claire Chan, Sandra Eldridge, Sally Hopewell, Gill Lancaster, and Lehana Thabane (see blurbs below).

The initial design for the site was funded by NIHR through Sandra Eldridge’s NIHR Senior Investigator Award. The website is maintained by Claire Chan with the support of the Working Group.

Special thanks to the following for helpful comments during development: Daniel Shanahan (F1000), Prof Jenny Hewison (University of Leeds), and Dr Chris Sutton (The University of Manchester).

Christine Bond

University of Aberdeen

Christine Bond is Emeritus Professor in the Division of Applied Health Sciences, University of Aberdeen. Her research interests are in improving the clinically effective and cost effective use of medicines, and the role of the wider health care team, with most research being undertaken in the primary care setting. Her research expertise encompasses the early stages of developing an intervention (systematic reviewing, qualitative approaches, and pilot trials) through to leading definitive randomised controlled trials. She is Editor of the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice and an Editorial Board member of Pilot and Feasibility Studies.

Michael Campbell

University of Sheffield

Michael Campbell is an Emeritus Professor of Medical Statistics at the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) at the University of Sheffield. He has interests in a wide variety of applications of statistics to health research, including design of complex interventions including cluster randomised trials, statistics in primary care, sample size estimation, time series analysis, health technology assessment, and hospital mortality. Mike is an Editorial Board member of Pilot and Feasibility Studies. He is a former editor of Statistics in Medicine, and formerly a statistical referee for the British Medical Journal.

Claire Chan

Queen Mary University of London

Claire Chan is a Statistician at the Pragmatic Clinical Trials Unit (PCTU), with current research interests in both cluster randomised trials and pilot and feasibility studies. In particular, Claire has published papers on the reporting of these studies. Claire has also been involved in leading several workshops on pilot and feasibility studies, and is an Associate Editor of Pilot and Feasibility Studies.

Sandra Eldridge

Queen Mary University of London

Sandra Eldridge is Professor of Biostatistics and Associate Dean for Strategic Developments at Queen Mary University of London. She is also Director of the Pragmatic Clinical Trials Unit. She has research interests in cluster randomised trials, pilot and feasibility studies, and pragmatic trials more generally. She led the work to produce the CONSORT guidelines for pilot randomised trials. She has sat on various funding panels for the National Institute for Health Research and is on the Editorial Board for Pilot and Feasibility Studies.

Sally Hopewell

University of Oxford

Sally Hopewell is Associate Professor at the Oxford Clinical Trials Research Unit, University of Oxford. Her key areas of research expertise are in the design, conduct and transparent reporting of randomised trials and systematic reviews. She has published extensively in these areas, and has been instrumental in the development of key reporting guidelines including CONSORT and PRISMA Statements. She has particular research interests in clinical trial registration, data sharing, development of core outcome sets, transparent reporting of clinical trial protocols, pilot trials and trials of complex interventions. Sally is a Cochrane editor, sits on the editorial board for the journal Systematic Reviews and is a member of the advisory board for Current Controlled Trials and the IDEAL Collaboration.

Gillian Lancaster

Keele University

Gillian Lancaster is Professor of Medical Statistics at Keele University’s Institute of Primary Care and Health Sciences. Her research scopes many medical and social applications, with a specific interest in trial methodology, and particularly developing Patient Reported Outcome Measures and other assessment tools primarily for use on children and young people (eg. Alder Hey Triage Pain score, EARLI, MDAT, ADNAT, CLCF). She is part of a global health working group convened by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to develop Indicators for Infant and Young Child Development (WHO IYCD tool). She is currently joint Editor in Chief of Pilot and Feasibility Studies.

Lehana Thabane

McMaster University

Lehana Thabane is a professor of biostatistics and associate department chair of the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, at McMaster University in Canada. Broadly speaking, his research interests are in the development and application of statistical methods in health research, population health research, health services and outcomes research. As a methodologist, his research interests cover a wide spectrum of research areas including clinical trials (KT trials, pragmatic trials, pilot trials), risk assessment, and evidence synthesis methods. He is former Scientific Officer and Chair of Canadian Institutes of Health Research RCT panel; lead statistician member for various Trial Steering Committees; Professor Extraordinaire at Stellenbosch University; Visiting Professor at University of Cape Town in South Africa; and is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. Lehana is also a mentor for over 100 graduate students and mentees, and is currently joint Editor in Chief of Pilot and Feasibility Studies.