Alice Biggane was the first Early Stage Researcher within the MiRoR network to defend her PhD thesis on January 15, 2020. Alice’s viva voce examination took place at the University of Liverpool and was carried out by Dr Adam Noble and Professor Jane Blazeby. She celebrated afterward with family members, friends and colleagues.

The thesis, which was supervised by Professors Paula Williamson and Bridget Young (University of Liverpool) and Professor Philippe Ravaud (Université de Paris) aimed to investigate methods and perspectives surrounding patient and public input in Core outcome sets (COS) and clinical guideline development and identified pointers to support future research in this area. COS are agreed minimum sets of health outcomes that should be measured and reported in all relevant trials. COS development with patient and public input ensures the resulting COS is valid and reliable.

After successfully passing her viva in Liverpool Alice will soon defend her thesis at the Université de Paris in order to obtain a double diploma.

In the meantime, she has already started work at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine as a post-doctoral researcher in Adolescent Health in low and middle income countries. Specifically she is working on sexual and reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa. The skills and knowledge she acquired throughout the MiRoR project will prove to be useful in the next few months as she looks toward study design and methodology and particularly community involvement and engagement.