Consultancy

We offer consultancy on the following:

• Assistance with ethics application forms
• Statistical requirements for grant applications including sample size calculation
• Advice on study design
• Data collection and processing
• Data quality and management
• Statistical analysis

The best time to start seeking advice is at the design stage of any project. It is never too early. Please plan well in advance, especially when facing deadlines for grant applications or abstract submissions. We cannot guarantee to help if your work needs to be submitted, presented or published at short notice.

Unfortunately, our limited resources will not allow us to take on all projects and, as such, we sometimes have to prioritise our commitments.

When preparing grant applications you should always include some degree of costing for statistical input if you will require it (even if you only need advice, rather than analyses support).  Please contact Professor Amanda Lee or Dr Alex Douglas (School of Biological Sciences) to obtain advice on the level of costing to include.

You should also consider whether the statistician should be invited to be a grant applicant, especially if the project involves substantial statistical input. In such cases, costs may be included as a percentage of full-time equivalent (FTE) rather than as a total number of hours. However, we must always see and approve the final version of any grant proposal which includes statistical costings before submission.

Like all academics, we depend upon a healthy publication record. If one of us has made a substantial contribution to the project we would expect that person to be invited to be a co-author. It would save time and possible embarrassment if co-authorship could be considered at the outset of any collaboration. Irrespective of whether we are a co-author or simply acknowledged, we must always see and approve any papers/abstracts before submission where there has been Medical Statistics Team involvement.

We offer University staff an initial 30 minute consultation with no charge. Thereafter, we are required by the College to recover costs since the majority of the Team are non-core funded. Unless some prior arrangement has been negotiated, the charge is £70 per hour following the initial free 30 minute consultation. If the project involves substantial statistical input, costs will be  calculated as a percentage of FTE rather than calculated on an hourly basis.

Please contact Professor Amanda Lee (a.j.lee@abdn.ac.uk) to discuss costs of statistical support as early as possible.

School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition/NHS Grampian staff etc. should contact Gail Mew to arrange a consultancy appointment gail.mew@abdn.ac.uk.

School of Biological Sciences staff should contact Alex Douglas (a.douglas@abdn.ac.uk or +44 (0)1224 272873) to discuss support.  

Prior to your appointment, you will be e-mailed a simple form asking for brief details of what you would like to discuss with the statistician, the form will then be passed to the statistician.