UK EQUATOR Centre

The UK EQUATOR Centre focuses on national activities aimed at raising awareness and supporting the adoption of good research reporting practices. The Centre works with partner organisations and initiatives and contributes to the work of the EQUATOR Network as a whole. The UK EQUATOR Centre is also the head office of the EQUATOR Network.

The key focus of the UK EQUATOR Centre

• EQUATOR website (www.equator-network.org)
  Development and maintenance of online resources, including Library for Health research reporting and Toolkits
• Education and training
  Organising workshops, courses, seminars, conferences for researchers, research students, editors and peer reviewers (/category/events/all-past-events/). To hear about EQUATOR courses in Oxford, please join our mailing list by sending a blank email to [email protected].
• Collaborative activities to raise reporting standards
  UK Health Research Authority, Pan American Health Organisation, Global Health Network (focus on low and middle-income countries)
• Research into oncology research
  Assessment of methodology issues and development of resources for researchers, editors and reviewers

 

UK EQUATOR Centre staff

Gary Collins, Director of the UK EQUATOR Centre

Professor Gary Collins is a 125th Anniversary Chair, and Professor of Medical Statistics at the University of Birmingham, UK. Gary has been involved in the development of numerous reporting guidelines (e.g., GATHER, CONSORT-AI, CONSORT-Surrogate, DECIDE-AI), and led the development of the TRIPOD and TRIPOD+AI reporting guidelines for clinical prediction models. He was recently involved in the 2025 updates of the CONSORT and SPIRIT statements.

Doug Altman (1948-2018), Founding Director of the UK EQUATOR Centre

Professor Doug Altman was Professor of Statistics in Medicine at the University of Oxford, UK and founder of the Centre for Statistics in Medicine. He was a co-founder of the EQUATOR Network, chair of the EQUATOR Steering Group, and Founding Director of the UK EQUATOR Centre.

Doug published over 800 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including many aimed at clarifying statistical methods and ideas for medical researchers. He was the author of Practical Statistics for Medical Research (1991) and co-editor of Statistics with Confidence (1989 and 2000) and Systematic Reviews in Health Care (1995 and 2001). He was a statistical advisor to the Cochrane Collaboration and the BMJ. Doug had a long-standing interest in the reporting of medical research and was an executive member of several groups working on reporting guidelines, including CONSORT for randomised trials, QUOROM / PRISMA for systematic reviews, STROBE for epidemiological studies, and REMARK for tumour marker prognostic studies.

Jennifer de Beyer, Publication & Dissemination Specialist

Dr Jen de Beyer teaches our academic writing, publication, and communication skills courses and develops resources on how to write fantastic health research articles, such as our toolkits. You’re also likely to find her promoting reporting guidelines and clear reporting through our social media channels (@EQUATORNetwork) and at conferences. Jen completed a doctorate in systems biology, focusing on biochemistry, and worked in academic editing before joining the UK EQUATOR Centre in 2015.

 

Michael Schlüssel, (Honorary fellow)

Dr Michael Maia Schlüssel is a medical statistician working on prognostic models and methodological research, focusing on assessing and proposing strategies to improve medical research quality, integrity, and transparency. He also teaches statistics and research design in our research and publication skills courses. He is a member of the international advisory board on methodology for the journals Neurosurgery and Operative Neurosurgery.

Michael’s research background includes collaborations with universities and research centres worldwide, focusing on the data analysis of large population-based epidemiological studies in nutritional epidemiology, maternal and child health, developmental origins of health and disease, and determinants of chronic diseases. Earning a BSc (2003), MSc (2006) and PhD (2010) in Nutrition from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, his postgraduate research focused on epidemiology with a strong statistics component. He moved to the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Oxford in 2013 to work as a postdoctoral research assistant with the INTERGROWTH-21st project, then joined CSM in 2014.

Paula Dhiman, Medical Statistician

At the Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Dr Paula Dhiman investigates how medical research is done, focusing on the methodological conduct and reporting of non-randomised research, with a view to helping improve the quality and integrity of future research. This is known as meta-research or “research on research”. Paula is passionate about statistical methodology and observational research and is particularly interested in prognostic/risk modelling.

Much of her work experience has been as a medical statistician within Primary Care at the University of Nottingham, where she was awarded a PhD in Medical Statistics (Primary Care) in 2015. More recently, she worked as an advisor for the Research Design Service (East Midlands), helping researchers and clinicians apply for funding for their research through study design, and grant writing.

 

EQUATOR Publications

A list of publications from the EQUATOR Network team members is available.

The UK EQUATOR Centre had three presentations accepted to the 2020 REWARD EQUATOR Conference (Berlin, 20-22 February 2020).

EQUATOR Funding

We gratefully acknowledge financial contributions from all of our funders and sponsors. Without their generous support, we would not be able to fulfil our mission.

The main funding for the EQUATOR Network has been provided by the UK NHS National Knowledge Service, National Library for Health and National Institute for Health Research, UK Medical Research Council, Scottish Chief Scientist Office, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

We would like to thank Sir Muir Gray in particular for his continuing support of initiatives that aim to improve the quality of health care information and increase the availability of research findings presented in an accurate and transparent way.

Contact the UK EQUATOR Centre

Please send all general enquiries to [email protected]

For all other queries, please contact
Professor Gary Collins
Director, UK EQUATOR Centre
[email protected]