Events

Upcoming events

The 2024 PHSI Annual Symposium will be held on 1st July in the Humanities Complex, 11 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1TB 9:30-5:30.

The Bristol PHSI Annual Symposium is a day of research and networking, bringing together practitioners and researchers from across the University of Bristol and the Southwest, working in the broad area of Population Health. It will be a chance to hear about developments in Population Health spanning traditional academic boundaries as well as attending the first screenings of the new Population Health films made in collaboration with Street Films.

The theme of the symposium this year is: “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Population Health: Bridging the Gaps for a Healthier Future”.

We look forward to sharing more details about the programme in the coming weeks but in the meantime, where possible, please hold this date in your calendars.

You can register for the event here.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

We hope to see you there.

Previous events

2024

February

“Her name was Sita” – Film screening and panel event – M Shed – 28th February 2024

*Warning: This article discusses suicidal behaviour. If you have questions on self-harm or feel suicidaluse this link to find an international helpline.*

The PHSI were delighted to support a public screening of ‘Her Name Was Sita’ – a short documentary exploring womanhood, virtue, shame, and suicide in Nepal. In Nepal, suicide is the single leading cause of death among women of reproductive age. It is a serious but neglected public health problem. ‘Her Name Was Sita’ explores the concept of a virtuous woman and how shame and honour can lead to self-harm and suicide in Nepal.

The event, held at the M Shed in Bristol, showcased the film created by film maker Heshani Sothiraj Eddleston, as part of a collaboration between the University of Bristol Suicide and Self Harm group (SASH) and the University of Edinburgh Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention (CPSP). The film was followed by a panel discussion, which provided opportunity for a thought provoking conversation around the project and wider issues. The screening was well attended with 60 audience members from a variety of sectors including academia, charity, health, and the general public.

The trailer for the film can be found here, and more information is available on the CPSP​ website. To learn more about the University of Bristol SASH group, please visit their webpage.

January

PHSI Climate change sandpit success

The first of our SRIF funded PHSI Sandpit events was held in January on the topic of climate change and global health.

The meeting, chaired by Prof. Ellen Brooks-Pollock (PHSI Director), was attended by multidisciplinary colleagues from the University of Bristol. The aim was to bring together researchers with similar interests but different skills to discuss the topic of climate change with a view to applying for funding. The event was very successful and discussion continued in the weeks following the meeting culminating in the submission of an application to a UKRI funding call. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the sandpit.

If you have a grant you would like to apply for and would like help convening a team of experts to support the application, please get in touch (gemma.crawford@bristol.ac.uk).

2023

July

The PHSI were very glad to support The Bristol Cancer Research Network’s Early Career Researchers’ symposium 2023 which took place 28 June in the Life Sciences Building.

Over 90 people registered to take part in this live event organised by the Bristol Cancer Research Network, which is supported by the University of Bristol’s Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research. The programme offered a series of oral and poster presentations from Early Career Researchers based on an abstract submission process, and comprised 8 oral and 16 poster presentations delivered by up and coming research stars. The event also included talks from two keynote speakers.

Find out more about the event here.

April

The PHSI provided funding to support the first in-person event for the Bristol Immuno-Epidemiology group this month.

The university of Bristol immuno-epidemiology group formed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Members range from masters students up to professors and come from Population Health Sciences, Engineering Mathematics, Bristol Veterinary School and Cellular and Molecular Medicine. To date the group had met only online and focus has mostly stayed on COVID-19.

In 2023 they planned their first in-person meeting to: –

  • Build on early collaborations and define future research activities in this exciting area.
  • Enhance the role of ECRs in gaining skills in leadership by co-leading group meetings.
  • Facilitate communication between researchers of different backgrounds to tackle research questions that sit across immunology and epidemiology.
  • Address barriers to ongoing collaboration.
  • Identify suitable funding calls and opportunities for co-authoring immuno-epi research papers.

A guest speaker from the Office for National Statistics (lead of the COVID-19 Community Infection Survey) was also invited to share her work and stimulate discussions.

February

The PHSI were pleased to support the 2023 Infection and Immunity ECR annual symposium

The event offered students, postgraduates, technicians, fellows and others in the first stages of building an independent research career an opportunity to share and discuss their work with a wider audience. Over 100 people registered to take part in this in-person afternoon event organised by the University of Bristol’s Infection and Immunity Research Network, which is supported by the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research. The event allowed Early Career Researchers (ECRs) the opportunity to write and submit an abstract, go through a competitive peer review process, and deliver a presentation to an audience of students and staff from across the University, both Bristol NHS Trusts, and beyond.

More information about this event & the PHSI’s contribution can be found here.

Photo credit: Catherine Brown

Mendel at 200 webinar series

Following on from the success of the MRC IEU two-day conference celebrating 200th anniversary of Mendel’s birth, there was a series of webinars throughout the year. Details of the webinars can be found on the MRC IEU website.

2022

November

PHSI Annual symposium:  Climate Change and Global Health

This in-person event included a selection of exciting talks from members of the PHSI community and concluded with a public lecture from Professor Petra Meier.

Watch the event here.

September

9th September – Dr Michael Fletcher – Life at Nature Genetics: what we do, how scientific publishing works, and how I got here.

Dr Michael Fletcher from Nature genetics joined us in Oakfield House to offer insight into topics that the journal is currently interested in, the process of publishing a paper with Nature Genetics (submission, peer review, etc.), plus details about an editorial career and how he got into it.

29th September – Professor David Hunter – Our Future Health – Zoom Webinar

Professor Hunter is the Chief Science Advisor to Our Future Health a major new national initiative in the UK that aims to return genomic information to consenting participants. Professor Hunter discussed this exciting project during this one hour webinar event.

July

20th – 21st July

Mendel at 200 – MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit

Two centuries ago, on 20 July 1822, Gregor Johann Mendel was born, a friar who became known as the founder of genetics. Mendel’s experiments with pea plants paved the way for much of the research that we do in the Integrative Epidemiology Unit. To mark his 200th birthday, the MRC IEU hosted a two-day conference/event, at Bristol Zoo Gardens and online, on 20-21 July 2022.

Speakers at the conference spanned epidemiology, agriculture and the history of genetics, and also considered the impact of eugenics and other ethical issues.

2021

17th September  – Community: Scientists for Open Science

The University of Bristol is an institutional member of UKRN, and has a local network led by Hugo Pedder. This video gives an overview of UKRN’s origin story and activities. If you’d like to be involved, get in touch!

6th to 7th July  5th Annual Mendelian Randomization Conference

Mendelian Randomization: Harnessing the power of population diversity and family relatedness, read full details with programme and list of speakers

2020

20 November  – Covid-19 Known Unknowns Webinar

16 November  Annual Symposium: Patients, Populations, and the Public in Research

This online event included a selection of exciting talks from members of the PHSI community and concluded with a public lecture from Professor James Wilson, a philosopher and ethicist from UCL. Professor Wilson’s research integrates philosophy with other relevant disciplines, such as epidemiology, economics, and political theory, to explore conceptual and practical challenges in the sustainable and equitable improvement of human wellbeing. His research has particular focus on public health ethics, and the ownership and governance of ideas and information. 

Zoom video recordings of annual symposium:

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2019

17-19 July  4th Annual Mendelian Randomisation Conference This meeting focussed on the development, application and translation of Mendelian randomization methods to a range of fields. This will be relevant to all with an interest in causality, including from social science, clinical science, public health, biomedical research, epidemiology, statistics and the pharmaceutical industry.  An interactive event for all to contribute to discussion on new methodologies and wide scale implementation.

2018

June 13-15th  Guest speaker at a Conference on Epidemiological Birth Cohort and Longitudinal Studies, Oulu, Finland, read the full details

June

Bristol Population Health Science Institute Annual Symposium

The Bristol Population Health Sciences Institute (PHSI) hosted a one-day event on Monday 26th February 2018 for all PhD students with research interests in any area of Population Health from across the University of Bristol and the GW4 BioMed Doctoral Training Partnership . Population Health was interpreted very broadly to include any research which may ultimately have an impact on human health, from basic science, translational, social science to classic epidemiology.

The event, was held at The Watershed in central Bristol, and involved networking activities, a keynote address and workshop on research reproducibility led by Professor Marcus Munafò (School of Experiment Psychology), presentations and posters from PhD students, and a session on career development.

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2017

10 October – Epigenetics in Clinical and Translational Research, read the full details

20-22 September  – Guest speaker at the 16th CRG Symposium: 7th International Workshop on Genomic Epidemiology, read the full details

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