Julian Higgins

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| name = Julian P.T. Higgins

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| birth_name = Julian Piers Thomas Higgins

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| birth_place = Middlesbrough

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| nationality = British

| fields = Biostatistics

| workplaces = Imperial College London
University College London
University of York
Medical Research Council
University of Bristol

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| education = Durham University, University of Cambridge, and The University of Reading

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| thesis_title = Exploiting information in random effects meta-analysis

| thesis_url = https://europepmc.org/abstract/eth/387704

| thesis_year = 1997

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| known_for = Meta-analysis

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| awards = Cochrane Collaboration's Thomas C. Chalmers Award; Society for Research Synthesis Methodology's Ingram Olkin Award for distinguished lifetime achievement in research synthesis methodology; the Campbell Collaboration's Frederick Mosteller Award for Distinctive Contributions to Systematic Reviewing

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Julian P. T. Higgins is a British biostatistician, Professor of Evidence Synthesis and Director of Research at the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Bristol.{{Cite web |url=http://www.bristol.ac.uk/social-community-medicine/people/julian-p-higgins/index.html |title=Professor Julian Higgins |last=Bristol |first=University of |website=www.bristol.ac.uk |language=en-GB |access-date=2018-07-04}} Higgins was previously Chair in Evidence Synthesis at the University of York, and Programme Leader at the MRC Biostatistics Unit in Cambridge. He is also a founding trustee and a Past-President of the Society for Research Synthesis Methodology.{{cite web |url=http://www.srsm.org/officers.html|title=Officers|access-date=2018-07-04}}

Early life and education

Higgins was born in North Yorkshire, where he attended the Stokesley School. He completed his undergraduate studies in mathematics at Durham University in 1992, earned a diploma in mathematical statistics from the University of Cambridge in 1993, and obtained a PhD in applied statistics from the University of Reading in 1997.{{cite thesis |type=PhD |last=Higgins|first=JPT. |date=1997 |title= Exploiting Information in Random Effects Meta-analysis |publisher=University of Reading}}

Academic career

Higgins is a Senior Investigator at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). An expert on meta-analysis and systematic review methodologies, Professor Higgins contributes actively to the Cochrane Collaboration, where he also serves as Senior Methods Advisor. He is a co-editor of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions and has been named an ISI Highly Cited researcher each year since 2015.{{Cite web |url=http://www.bristol.ac.uk/social-community-medicine/people/julian-p-higgins/index.html |title=Professor Julian Higgins |last=Bristol |first=University of |website=www.bristol.ac.uk |language=en-GB |access-date=2018-06-03}}

On 28 August 2019 Higgins, along with Jonathan Sterne, Jelena Savović, and colleagues, published in The British Medical Journal an article detailing "RoB 2", a revised tool for assessing risk of bias in randomized trials. Sterne Jonathan A C, Savović Jelena, Page Matthew J, Elbers Roy G, Blencowe Natalie S, Boutron Isabelle et al. RoB 2: a revised tool for assessing risk of bias in randomised trials BMJ 2019; 366 :l4898. Assessing risk of bias is regarded as an essential component of a systematic review. The most commonly used tool for assessing risk of bias to date has been the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool, which Professor Higgins introduced in 2008. Higgins JPT, Green S (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Available from www.handbook.cochrane.org. Higgins is the most cited author of The British Medical Journal.{{Cite web |url=https://exaly.com/author/6378401/julian-pt-higgins/rankings |title=Julian Higgins publication rankings |access-date=2022-05-20}}