Internship / Master thesis project

Do you enjoy working with healthcare data and developing methods that bring societal value? Do you want to participate in research that can benefit patients around the world? Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC), a dynamic non-profit organisation with the mission to improve medicine safety globally, is opening a position for a 6-month internship or master thesis project starting September 2026 or later.

We have a project proposal in place, but you will be actively involved in shaping the project’s goals and determining the methods to be used.

Project: following up a signal identified in VigiBase using Swedish register data

Pharmacovigilance (PV) systems are a key component in drug safety monitoring, enabling early identification of potential adverse events related to medicines. Traditionally, the safety monitoring of approved medicines is relying on adverse event reporting systems that collect and analyse case report data to generate hypotheses on previously unknown or incompletely understood causal relationships between a medicine and an adverse event. These hypotheses are often referred to as “signals”. While adverse event reporting systems continue to inform most regulatory decisions, other evidence sources, including routine health data such as register-based records, are increasingly being used to support and enhance the analysis of signals.

The aim of this project is to follow up on a signal identified in VigiBase (the WHO global database of adverse event reports for medicines and vaccines, maintained by UMC) using pharmacoepidemiological analyses in Swedish register data, and to triangulate the results with insights from adverse event reports. The project involves analysis of Swedish register data using epidemiological study designs and descriptive analyses of case reports in VigiBase. Key activities include data cleaning, statistical analyses with advanced methods for causal effect estimation, and project documentation including literature review and manuscript writing.

Who you are:

• You are enthusiastic and want to solve meaningful problems
• You are analytical, curious, independent and have an inquisitive mind
• You have an in interest in pharmacoepidemiology and/or pharmacovigilance research
• You have advanced training in epidemiology, biostatistics, public health, data science or related field
• You have prior experience with data analysis in R

Benefits for you:

• You will be part of a multidisciplinary team and be mentored by UMC employees
• You will work in an international and inclusive environment
• You will have the possibility to publish your work in a scientific journal

The role requires working on-site at the Uppsala office.

Applications are considered on an ongoing basis during the application period.

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