Clinical research
Clinical research staffing
Clinical research associates, coordinators, regulatory affairs and clinical data staff for sponsors, CROs and research sites. A different discipline from health IT, staffed by recruiters who know the difference between monitoring a trial and configuring an EHR.
Roles we fill
Clinical research runs on a small number of specific job titles, and the distinctions between them matter more than they do in most fields. Hiring a coordinator when you needed a monitor is an expensive mistake.
Clinical research associate
The monitor. Works for a sponsor or CRO, visits investigator sites, performs source data verification, checks protocol adherence and ICH-GCP compliance, and writes monitoring visit reports. We place CRAs at every level from in-house and CRA I through to senior and lead, and we cover both regional and fully remote models.
Clinical research coordinator
The site side counterpart. Runs the trial day to day at the investigator site: screening and consenting participants, scheduling visits, collecting data, managing the investigational product and handling queries. Often a nurse or an allied health professional by background, which is why this sits naturally alongside our clinical desk.
Regulatory affairs
Submissions, IRB and ethics committee correspondence, essential document management, and keeping the trial master file in a state that survives an inspection. Specialists in this area are consistently harder to find than the job postings suggest.
Clinical data management
Clinical data managers, data coordinators, EDC build and validation, query management and database lock. Adjacent to our technology desk without being the same thing.
Supporting roles
Clinical trial assistants, clinical project managers, site management associates, quality assurance and pharmacovigilance and drug safety associates.
Why this is a separate desk
Clinical research sits between our clinical and technology practices without belonging to either. A CRA is not a health IT professional, and clinical informatics is not clinical research, even though the two get conflated constantly in job postings written by people outside the field.
Informatics work is about the system: configuring the EHR, building clinical decision support, designing workflow. Research monitoring is about the trial: protocol compliance, data integrity and the regulatory record. Different training, different certifications, different candidate pools.
Screening for one when you meant the other wastes a hiring cycle, and it is a common enough error that we treat it as a separate service line rather than a bullet under technology.
What we screen for
- Therapeutic area experience. Oncology, cardiology, CNS, rare disease, vaccines, medical device. Sponsors are usually specific about this and generic research experience does not substitute.
- Phase experience. Phase I first-in-human work is a different job from Phase III multicentre and different again from post-marketing.
- Regulatory literacy. ICH-GCP, 21 CFR Part 11, and where relevant EU CTR. Certification through ACRP or SOCRA where the role calls for it.
- Systems. Medidata Rave, Veeva Vault, Oracle Clinical, IQVIA and the CTMS in use.
- Travel tolerance. For CRAs this is the single most common reason a placement fails, and it is worth being blunt about at screening rather than at month three.
Who we work with
Sponsors running their own trials, contract research organisations, academic medical centres with active research programmes, site management organisations, and individual investigator sites that need a coordinator without carrying a permanent headcount.
Contract, contract to hire and direct hire. A large share of clinical research staffing is project length work tied to a study timeline, which suits the contract model well.
Questions
Common questions
What is the difference between a CRA and a clinical informatics specialist?
They are unrelated roles. A clinical research associate monitors clinical trials for a sponsor or CRO: site visits, source data verification, protocol and ICH-GCP compliance. A clinical informatics specialist works on the electronic health record and clinical workflow inside a healthcare organisation. Different training, different certifications, different candidate pools.
What is the difference between a CRA and a CRC?
A CRA works for the sponsor or CRO and monitors sites from the outside. A clinical research coordinator works at the investigator site and runs the trial day to day, including screening, consent, visits and data collection. CRAs monitor the work that CRCs perform.
Do you place remote CRAs?
Yes. Much of the CRA market is now regional or fully remote with travel to sites, and we recruit against whichever model you operate. We screen explicitly for realistic travel tolerance, because that is the most common reason a CRA placement does not last.
Do CRCs need a nursing background?
Not required, but common, and it is an advantage in trials involving infusions, complex procedures or high acuity participants. We also place coordinators from allied health, life sciences and pharmacy backgrounds.
Do you staff by therapeutic area?
Yes, and we ask for it upfront. Oncology, cardiology, CNS, rare disease, vaccines and device experience are screened as a hard requirement rather than a preference, because sponsors almost always treat them that way.
Can you staff a whole study team?
Yes. Clinical project manager, CRAs, coordinators, a clinical trial assistant, data management and regulatory support, contracted for the study duration. Tell us the protocol, the phase, the number of sites and the timeline.