Dr Dan Owens

Dr Dan Owens identifies and promotes training opportunities for research fellows in Southampton.

Dan is a Consultant in Paediatric Emergency Medicine and Research. Prior to this, he was a research fellow at the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility (CRF) and completed his PhD at UoS.

Drawing on his own experience

During his career, he has worked with many different people in the research and development (R&D) department at UHS. He says this makes him well placed to help others navigate the sometimes ‘slightly confusing’ world of being a research fellow. This includes helping them contact the right people and follow the right processes.

Dan’s goal is to improve children’s clinical care by investigating technologies and strategies that make it safer, more efficient and less invasive. He is the research lead in the Children’s Emergency Department, where he leads interventional studies to improve children’s emergency care. He is also a Principal Investigator for children’s vaccine studies in the CRF.

Supporting Southampton’s research fellows

Dan says that, for him, being a research fellow at UHS is the best job he has ever had. He is now trying to give others the same experience.

He is responsible for overseeing the clinical research fellows at UHS. This includes keeping track of how many fellows there are and where they go, but he is also a point of contact other than their supervisor.

Dan has helped to set up the Research Education Programme, which is a bi-monthly event aimed at all clinicians who are new to research, in particular UHS research delivery fellows. The programme alternates between academic topics, such as methodology and statistics, and research delivery topics, such as research infrastructure and funding.

Focus on the future

Dan’s advice for current research fellows in Southampton would be to get involved in whatever you can, and get to know as many different people as possible along the way.

In addition to learning about research itself, a role in research will help develop your understanding of finances, management and collaborative working that are vital wherever your career takes you. This requires creativity and a willingness to learn new skills beyond your clinical work, but it is a satisfying and tremendously useful journey to take.

If you would like to learn more about the research opportunities available, please book onto the SoAR Researcher Advice Clinic. You get in touch with Dan by contacting SoAR.