Job No.: 674531

Location: 553 St Kilda Road, Melbourne

Employment Type: Full-time

Duration: 3-year fixed-term appointment

Remuneration: The successful applicant will receive a tax-free stipend, at the current value of $36,063 per annum 2025 full-time rate, as per the Monash Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend www.monash.edu/study/fees-scholarships/scholarships/find-a-scholarship/research-training-program-scholarship#scholarship-details

It is desirable for applicants to either be a pharmacist or a health care practitioner. Successful candidates who meet this criteria will be eligible for an additional stipend of $5000/year (maximum $15,000 for the duration of the scholarship) on top of the current full-time rate for a Monash RTP stipend.

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About the project

In Australia, 40% of women experience an unintended pregnancy during their lifetime and one in three of these results in abortion. These unintended pregnancies may be due to non-use or inconsistent use of contraception or contraceptive failure. Women in Australia may also have limited knowledge of their contraceptive options or encounter misinformation that can negatively impact on contraceptive uptake.

Community pharmacists can play an important role in increasing access to contraception. Many women perceive pharmacy as an appropriate health care setting to obtain more information about contraception and pharmacists are willing and interested to provide this care. This project will involve the development, implementation and evaluation of a video animation that seeks to empower women to choose and request contraception in a pharmacy setting. The video will be co-designed with consumers and key stakeholders and piloted in community pharmacies. This pilot study will assess the feasibility and acceptability of this approach for use in a larger scale study.

SPHERE and Monash University

The successful candidate will be part of a multidisciplinary cohort of researchers and students based at the SPHERE NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health in Primary Care. SPHERE’s focus is on improving access to and the quality of women’s sexual and reproductive health care services particularly in the areas of preconception care, contraception, medical abortion services and endometriosis and pelvic pain diagnosis and management in primary care. For more information about the important work that SPHERE does, please visit the website.

SPHERE is located at the Department of General Practice at the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and is part of the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (MNHS) at Monash University.

Monash University is a member of Australia’s Group of Eight coalition, and is internationally recognized for excellence in research and teaching as one of the world's top 80 universities. Embedded in an ecosystem of health, academia and industry, it delivers the research outcomes, skilled workforce, technology and partnerships to improve human health locally and globally.

Supervisory team

The principal supervisor will be Professor Danielle Mazza AM FAHMS.

Professor Mazza is the Head of the Department of General Practice at Monash University and a nationally and internationally recognised leader in implementation research and knowledge translation in the general practice setting. She has made significant, sustained and ongoing contributions to advance general practice and primary health care in Australia in the field of women’s sexual and reproductive health and as a proponent of evidence-based quality improvement through guideline development and implementation. She leads the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Sexual and Reproductive Health for Women in Primary Care (SPHERE), which aims to improve the quality, safety, and capacity of primary health care services to achieve better outcomes in women’s sexual and reproductive health.

Eligibility Requirements

This opportunity is available to domestic students only. Candidates will need to fulfil the Monash University minimum requirements for admission to a PhD detailed here: www.monash.edu/admissions/entry-requirements/minimum.

How to apply

To express your interest in this scholarship and PhD research opportunity, we request candidates email [email protected] and provide:

A cover letter describing your research interests and why you would like to undertake a PhD (maximum one page)

A CV including qualifications, academic achievements, list of publications, work history and references

A copy of your academic transcript(s)

Enquiries: Please email [email protected]

Applications Close: Thursday 4 September 2025, 11:55pm AEST