Professor Robin Christensen is a senior biostatistician and convener of Section for Biostatistics and Evidence-Based Research at the Parker Institute as well as a professor of biostatistics and clinical epidemiology at the Department of Clinical Research, within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Southern Denmark. He is thus co-affiliated with Section for Biostatistics and Evidence-Based Research, the Parker Institute, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital AND the Research Unit of Rheumatology, Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense University Hospital, Denmark.
Professor Christensen did his PhD in evidence-based rheumatology and biostatistics, and works internationally as a statistics (and osteoarthritis) editor for the ’Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group’ (CMSG), as well as a member of the ’Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation’ (GRADE) Working Group, the ’Outcome Measures in Rheumatology’ (OMERACT), and was part of the establishment of the ’International Dermatology Outcome Measures’ (IDEOM) initiative. In the fall of 2017, he was invited to become a founding member of the ‘Technical Advisory Group’ (TAG) in OMERACT; the role of the OMERACT TAG is to collaborate and critically appraise submitted documentation from various working groups on the choice of outcome measures. He is a member of the editorial board for Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, and a member of the BMJ Open’s statistical advisory board. Further to his editorial interests he is an ad hoc editorial member of Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research, Arthritis Care & Research, and the Arthritis Research & Therapy. In 2022 Professor Christensen he accepted the invitation for the editorial position to become the new Statistical Editor for Acta Orthopaedica.
Professor Christensen works with a broad field of biostatistical methods in medical research. This field covers a range of clinical epidemiological problems, where inference from meta-research, study designs, decision making processes, statistical analysis plans, use and misuse of statistics, and transparency dominate. He has a passion for meaningful, accurate studies that address “answerable questions”, owing a great debt of gratitude to a long history of distinguished founding fathers of clinical epidemiology, who highlighted the need for strengthening the empirical practice of medicine and proposed initial evidentiary rules for guiding clinical decisions. Stressing the importance of classical statistical methods (incl. transparent reporting of these), Professor Christensen is responsible for the development and analysis of numerous clinical trials and prospective research projects, both within and outside of the Parker Institute and the Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark. Professor Christensen is a founding member of the Evidence-Based Research (EBR) network where the aim is to reduce waste in research by promoting: ‘No new studies without prior systematic review of existing evidence’; as well as ‘Efficient production, updating and dissemination of systematic reviews’. He is a strong advocate of the REWARD (‘REduce research Waste And Reward Diligence’) Campaign; i.e., focus on how to increase value and reduce waste in biomedical research. Professor Christensen promotes these principles by being a “Lean Thinker”; the core idea is to maximize customer and consumer (e.g. patient) value while minimizing waste.
Professor Christensen has supervised more than 17 PhD students (currently supervising 9 PhD students/theses); he has an H index of 62, published 5 book chapters, and more than 400 peer reviewed articles - including articles in the Lancet, CMAJ, Annals of Internal Medicine, BMJ, PLOS Medicine, and JAMA.