Research Fellow Health Informatics and Data Engineering; NIHR Maternity Disparities Consortium; Department of Applied

Position Details
Department of Applied Health Sciences, School of Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Health

Department of Applied Health Sciences, School of Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Health

Location:

University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £47,389 to £56,535 with potential progression once in post to £63,606
Grade: 8
Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to May 2028
Closing date: 1 st October 2026

To create and disseminate knowledge through initiating and conducting original research and through publication, as appropriate to the disciplinary area.
The NIHR Maternity Disparities Consortium (NIHR MDC) is a £50 million NIHR investment which brings together a diverse range of organisations with expertise in research, capacity development and working with people and communities to deliver a step change in maternity outcomes and developing future research leaders in this area of need. The postholder will work within the pregnancy, birth and early postnatal maternal health theme (Theme
2), including research programmes in cardiometabolic risk prevention and management, and specifically, remote blood pressure monitoring in pregnancy and the postnatal period.
Routinely collected maternity data in the UK is fragmented across multiple clinical systems, as well as neonatal, community and outcome datasets. These systems were designed for clinical care rather than research, use different data structures, terminologies and identifiers, and cannot currently be interrogated together in a timely way. This fragmentation is a major barrier to understanding and addressing inequalities in maternity outcomes, and to delivering the rapid, reproducible evidence that the NIHR MDC requires.
The postholder will lead the design and development of a novel, harmonised data model and research-ready maternity database that integrates routinely collected data from maternity and hospital information systems (e.g. Badger Net, Epic) within a secure data environment and support consortium researchers to generate high-quality, reproducible real-world evidence rapidly and  postholder will conduct and publish original methodological and applied research arising from this work and will act as the primary interface between clinical and academic researchers, NHS Trust informatics teams and information governance functions.
The postholder will also lead a systems integration work package evaluating and prototyping approaches (e.g. integration engines such as Rhapsody, HL7/FHIR messaging, GP Connect) to enable maternity systems such as Badger Net to exchange information with GP and other NHS systems. The role therefore requires expertise in advanced data modelling and engineering skills applied to complex NHS electronic health record data, a strong grounding in health informatics research methods, and the ability to translate research questions into robust, governed data solutions.
The post is a FTC role offered initially until 31st of May 2028.

• Initiate and conduct original research which has measurable outcomes and is reflected in a growing national and often incipient international reputation
• Plan, design and co-ordinate research activities and programmes
• Contribute to the development of research strategies
• Publish results of own research
• Supervise PhD students
• Contribute to the Department/School through management/leadership
• Develop and make substantial contributions to knowledge transfer, enterprise, business engagement, public engagement activities, widening participation, schools outreach or similar activities at Department/School level or further within the University

• To plan and carry out research, using appropriate methodology and techniques appropriate to the discipline:
  • Design, develop and maintain data pipelines and extract-transform-load (ETL) processes to acquire, clean, link and standardise routinely collected maternity, neonatal and hospital data from sources such as Badger Net, Epic and related NHS systems
  • Design and implement a novel, harmonised research data model and database schema for maternity data, applying data modelling and database design best practice to ensure efficient, well-documented and reproducible data storage and retrieval
  • Develop and maintain scalable, secure data infrastructure to support data storage, processing and analysis for maternity research within a secure data environment to enable rapid,…