Designing, running, and evaluating clinical trials requires specialist knowledge across a team of people. Their complexity often means many early-career researchers don’t get exposed to sufficient clinical trial design of modern methods or the practical considerations and the impact that these choices have on the quality of the research. The purpose of this training course is to provide researchers with the opportunity to access advice and support from experienced trialists and their peer-group through a bespoke programme of work.

The course is aimed at early-career researchers or researchers new to trials who wish to develop the essential skills needed to plan a clinical trial.

You will be asked to bring a research question that you have discussed with your academic mentor to the first session. During the course you will learn all the key statistical and operational considerations which are needed to run a clinical trial effectively. You will develop a protocol over the 12 weeks based on your chosen research question.

The course involves a mixture of online material and face to face small group tutorials. It is a bespoke programme of learning with a mix of independent learning and weekly peer-to-peer working.

The course is delivered over 12 weeks. This will include 8 learning weeks (online and in-person small group tutorials), 3 reading week breaks and 1 final presentation to senior academics.

Within each learning week there is a collection of short videos that provide introductions to key topics and associated weekly tasks that are discussed within the weekly two-hour face to face tutorials.

You will have the week to review the online material, then the opportunity to consolidate the topic and apply this to your own clinical trial protocol in discussion with tutors and support from your peers in the group.

• Week 1: Preparing to Design a Trial (21 Mar)
• Week 2: Classification of Clinical Trials (28 Mar)
• Week 3: Late Phase Trial Design (04 Apr)
• Week 4: BREAK - Reading week (11 Apr)
• Week 5: Protocol Development (18 Apr)
• Week 6: Collecting Data (25 Apr)
• Week 7: Statistical Considerations (02 May)
• Week 8: BREAK - Reading week (09 May)
• Week 9: Trial Operations (16 May)
• Week 10: Analysing and Reporting Trial Outcomes (23 May)
• Week 11: BREAK - Reading week (30 May)
• Week 12: Presentation Session (06 Jun)

The next course will run from Tuesday 12 Mar to 04 Jun 2024.

Tutorials take place on Tuesday evenings, 18:00 to 20:00 at the White City Campus.

The next course will be Spring 2024. 

No. The main part of the course is designed to be delivered face to face in small groups of 10-12 people.

The tutors are experienced ICTU staff working in Clinical Trial Statistics, Methodology, Operations and Clinical Data Systems.

Please email icctstats@imperial.ac.uk to request a short registration form.

The course costs £1,200.

ICTU is unable to provide funding for this course.  If you don’t have access to funds through a training grant, for example a fellowship then we recommend you speak to your supervisor or Head of Department about funding options.

You must have:

• Basic knowledge of clinical research
• Sufficient time to complete the homework
• Availability to attend 9 face-to-face sessions (8 tutorials and 1 final presentation)
• A research question to develop during the course
• A named academic supervisor/mentor
• Funding confirmed prior to the course starting.