Activating Young People to Address Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) – Exploring the ability to iterate and scale AMR educational interventions across global regions

About the Project

An opportunity has arisen for a full-time, fully-funded PhD studentship position within the Fleming Initiative, housed within the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College London. This PhD studentship is an innovative and exciting opportunity to investigate the barriers to scaling interventions across global regions, engage with local communities across the globe (at least 2 global sites) and explore the impact of a co-designed educational intervention on knowledge of AMR and change in behavioural intent regarding antimicrobial stewardship.

The Fleming Initiative is a new partnership between Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare Trust. Its aim is to protect global populations from the threat of antimicrobial resistance through an innovative approach combining research, behaviour change, public engagement, and policy to provide real-world solutions that work to protect the health security of local populations around the world.

Project Background:

The Fleming Initiative is undertaking a project to activate young people to address AMR, co-designing an educational intervention on AMR that aims to create the antimicrobial stewards of the future. This work maps directly to the commitments in the political declaration that was made at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2024, which advocate for AMR education at all levels, thereby creating future generations of antimicrobial stewards.

This is a 5-year programme of work which commenced in January 2025. The initial focus of the programme was to understand the global landscape with respect to AMR education, and to co-design an educational initiative in the UK with 14-year-olds. This is currently being evaluated in a research study to assess the impact of a co-designed initiative on knowledge of AMR and antimicrobial stewardship behaviours, and will be iterated for roll out across England.

The focus of this PhD will be to understand the barriers to the scaling of initiatives across different regions, work with local stakeholders and researchers in two global regions to conduct qualitative research, and iterate the English educational initiative in a co-design process, adapting it where necessary and then evaluating its implementation. Please note, this PhD will require travel to global partner regions to conduct research in collaboration with local researchers.

The aims of the research project are to:

• Systematically review existing academic work to understand barriers and facilitators to scaling of interventions across different global regions
• Understanding the differences in AMR education across global regions – conducting qualitative research (including semi-structured interviews and focus groups) to explore design, implementation and evaluation.
• Engage local communities with a co-design process to iterate and adapt the English initiative
• Conduct a research study following the implementation of an iterated educational initiative, overseeing a pre-post research study and evaluating changes in knowledge and behavioural intent
• Evaluate the iteration and delivery of this intervention globally through focus groups and qualitative research.

The successful student will be registered for an Imperial College PhD degree in the Faculty of Medicine where they will be based within the Behaviour Change workstream of the Fleming Initiative, led by Dr Kate Grailey.

Supervisors:

• Professor Alison Holmes, Professor of Infectious Diseases, Fleming Initiative Director, Imperial College, London
• Dr Kate Grailey, Research Fellow and Behavioural Science Lead, Fleming Initiative, Imperial College London
• Professor Michael Reiss, Professor of Science Education, Institute of Education, University College London

The studentship is for 36 months. Starting date and PhD enrolment is negotiable, but a target date is 1st October 2026.

Applicants are expected or have permanent leave to remain in the UK and should ideally hold a master's degree (merit or distinction) in addition to a bachelor's degree at UK First or Upper-Second Class Honours level.

The annual stipend will be £22,780/year for 3 years (adjusted for inflation) plus Home Tuition fees.

Applicants should submit their CV and a covering letter, including full contact details of two referees, to Dr Daniel Hale (d.hale@imperial.ac.uk). Imperial College PhD entry requirements must be met (see http://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/pg/apply/requirements) and the successful applicant will subsequently need to apply on-line via: Application process | Study | Imperial College London

Closing date for application is June 5, 2026. Interviews will be carried out in person/via Microsoft Teams.