We are seeking a highly skilled and quantitative researcher to join our collaborative project providing cost-effectiveness advice for immunisation policy to the Dept of Health and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). An ideal candidate would have a strong background in mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, experience with matching models to data and an interest in health economics or predictions for policy.

The successful candidate would join the MEMVIEER team, to be primarily supervised by Prof. Keeling (Maths & Life Sciences), but to strongly interact with Prof Staniszewska (Warwick Medical School) and Profs Petrou (Oxford). This is an extension to a project that has been in operation for the last 6 years; more details of the work within this previous project can be found on the MEMVIE webpage: https://www.warwick.ac.uk/memvie

Immunization is a key and highly successful tool in the fight against a range of infectious diseases, but is associated with a considerable cost, with the UK spending in excess of £200 million per year on vaccines and vaccine delivery. Infectious disease and health economic models are therefore necessary to assess whether any change in the immunization programme is cost-effective; that is, whether the value placed on health benefits or improvements in social welfare that ensue are less than the incremental cost associated with the change in programme.
The University of Warwick has considerable experience and expertise in this area, with the assembled team serving on the several government advisory boards associated with public health. The team brings cutting-edge research techniques in mathematical modelling and health economics to provide a complementary approach to the work undertaken in this area by the Public Health England. Warwick has a strong international reputation for work on a range of infectious diseases and providing measured policy advice to a number of government agencies.
Through regular meetings with the Department of Health (DH) and PHE we ensure that our programme of dynamic and health economic modelling on infectious diseases meets the needs of DH (and JCVI), and reports are presented in a way that is of immediate use to policy-makers. In particular, we outline assumptions made, highlight gaps in the necessary data and define how these affect the interpretation of the results. Two other methods are being used to validate our conclusions: firstly, we seek to publish our findings in appropriate journals thereby opening our results to peer-review by the wider international academic community; secondly, we compare our predictions to changes in disease incidence and other health outcomes that follow changes in vaccine policy

The successful candidate would join a vibrant group modelling infectious diseases in humans and animals, based within the highly successful Zeeman Institute. (see https://www.warwick.ac.uk/SBIDER ). The Zeeman Institute for Systems Biology & Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research (SBIDER) specialises in bringing sophisticated mathematics to challenges in biological sciences. Our research spans from the theoretical to practical policy advice, and from the genome to the population. We are a team of around 20 staff from across campus with individuals based in Maths, Stats, Computer Science, Life Sciences and Medicine.

The post is available to start as soon as possible for the period up to 31st October 2022, but may need to be reduced in length depending on the starting salary of the successful candidate. The post is subject to the formal confirmation of the external funding

Applications via the HR website should include a CV and list of publications, research statement and links to a small selection of reprints/preprints or part of your PhD thesis as appropriate. All applicants should ideally ensure where possible that their three referees send their references by email to Alison Glendinning, Departmental Secretary, Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick at MathematicsPA@warwick.ac.uk by the closing date.

Informal enquiries can be sent to: M.J.Keeling@warwick.ac.uk