PhD fellowship in Veterinary Epidemiology

We are offering a PhD fellowship in Veterinary Epidemiology commencing 1 February 2025 or after agreement.

Our group and research
In our section we are approximately 50 employees working with production, nutrition and health

aspects in livestock, mainly pigs and cattle. The PhD fellow will be a part of the Data and Modelling Group, with approximately 10 employees. One of the focuses of this group is to identify tools and strategies for an optimal and responsible antibiotic use in the Danish pig production.

Project description

Since 2000, the Danish Veterinary Medicines Statistics Program (VetStat) collects and stores information on all medicines prescribed by veterinarians and purchased from a pharmacy or feed mills. Such data is used by the authorities to monitor national levels of antimicrobial consumption, as well as to set goals for their reduction. At different time points, changes in legislation alter prescription practices in Denmark, therefore affecting antimicrobial consumption patterns. One example of legislation change is the Yellow Card Scheme, established in 2010, which defines limits to antimicrobial consumption in herds, based on age and antibiotic group. Another recent change with expected effects on prescription practices is the EU-level harmonization of the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC) for active substances in antibiotic products, in 2022. This PhD project will mainly be focused on the epidemiology of veterinary antibiotic use, through data analyses and time-series models. However, the data validation part of the PhD will also include herd-level data collection through herd visits, interviews and questionnaires.

One part of this PhD will try to validate Vetstat records by comparing them with farm records, so data from Vetstat can be translated into actual monitoring of treatment behaviors. Antibiotic purchase data are continuously collected over time for individual herds, and aggregated at regional or national level, so the dataset for each herd or region can be seen as a time-series. Based on that, another part of the PhD will investigate the possibility of applying time-series models commonly used in process control to raw and farm-validated Vetstat data, to detect and predict deviations from normal consumption levels. Finally, if the previous step is successful, a last part will be to use the result of those models to estimate an effect of SPC or changes in Yellow Card factors and thresholds on antibiotic prescription practice after each intervention. The final project design and a more detailed methodology will be described after the employment, so the candidate can have some influence over their own research.

Principal supervisor is Associate Professor Leonardo Víctor de Knegt, Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, [email protected], Direct Phone: +45 35 32 40 62.

Main Co-supervisor: Adjunct Professor Lis Alban (Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Danish Agriculture and Food Council)

Project supervisor: Assistant Professor Amanda Brinch Kruse (Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences)

Start: 1 February 2025

Duration: 3 years as a PhD student

Job description
Your key tasks as a PhD student at SUND are:

• Carrying through an independent research project under supervision.

• Completing PhD courses or other equivalent education corresponding to approximately 30 ECTS points.
• Participating in active research environments including a stay with another research team.
• Obtaining experience with teaching or other types of dissemination related to your PhD project
• Teaching and disseminating your knowledge.
• Writing a PhD thesis on the grounds of your project

Key criteria for the assessment of applicants
Applicants must have qualifications corresponding to a master’s degree related to the subject area of the project, e.g. Veterinary Medicine or Animal Sciences. Please note that your master’s degree must be equivalent to a Danish master’s degree (two years).

Other important criteria are:

• The grade point average achieved
• Professional qualifications relevant to the PhD project
• Previous publications
• Relevant work experience
• Other professional activities
• An interest and experience in scientific writing
• A curious mind-set with a strong interest in pig production
• A keen interest in quantitative methods, statistics and/or mathematical modelling
• Previous experience with R programming is an advantage
• Language skills

Place of employment

The place of employment is at the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in a dynamic and international research environment.

Terms of employment
The average weekly working hours are 37 hours per week.

The employment as PhD fellow is full time and for 3 years. The start date is 1 February 2025 or after agreement.

The employment is conditioned upon the applicant’s success­ful enrolment as a PhD student at the Graduate School at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. This requires submission and acceptance of an application for the specific project formulated by the applicant.

The PhD study must be completed in accordance with The Ministerial Order on the PhD programme (2013) and the Faculty’s rules on achieving the degree.

Salary, pension and terms of employment are in accordance with the agree­ment between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State. Depending on seniority, the monthly salary starts at approximately 30,700 DKK/Roughly 4,100 EUR (April 2024 level) plus pension.

Questions
For specific information about the PhD fellowship, please contact the principal supervisor.

General information about PhD studies at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences is available at the Graduate School’s website: https://healthsciences.ku.dk/phd/guidelines/

Application procedure
Your application must be submitted electronically by clicking ‘Apply now’ below. The application must include the following documents in PDF format:

1. Motivated letter of application (max. one page)

2. CV incl. education, experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position

3. Certified copy of original Master of Science diploma and transcript of records in the original language, including an authorized English translation if issued in other language than English or Danish. If not completed, a certified/signed copy of a recent transcript of records or a written statement from the institution or supervisor is accepted. As a prerequisite for a PhD fellowship employment, your master’s degree must be equivalent to a Danish master’s degree. We encourage you to read more in the assessment database: https://ufm.dk/en/education/recognition-and-transparency/find-assessments/assessment-database. Please note that we might ask you to obtain an assessment of your education performed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science

4. Publication list (if possible)

Application deadline: Sunday 22 September 2024, 23.59pm CET

We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.

The further process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor.

The assessor makes a non-prioritized assessment of the academic qualifications and experience with respect to the above-mentioned area of research, techniques, skills and other requirements listed in the advertisement.

Once the assessment work has been completed each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.

You find information about the recruitment process at: http://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/

The applicants will be assessed according to the Ministerial Order no. 242 of 13 March 2012 on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.

Interviews are expected to be held in week 45 and 46.

The University of Copenhagen wish to reflect the diversity of society and encourage all qualified candidates to apply regardless of personal background.