Working in partnership with communities, patients, service users, carers and family members
People are at the heart of everything we do. They help us decide which research matters, how studies are designed, how they are carried out, and how findings are shared to make the biggest difference. We offer many ways for patients and the public to get involved, recognising that everyone has different skills, time, confidence and access and support needs.
What’s Public Involvement?
It’s when members of the public work in partnership with researchers and research organisations to improve research. It’s also known as patient and public involvement, or PPI.
We use the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s (NIHR) definition of public involvement:
Public involvement in research is research carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them.
You can find out more about PPI here: NIHR | Public involvement in research
How do we work in partnership?
- We work with public partners to improve the way we involve people.
- Our public partners are involved in making decisions.
- Our researchers involve public partners in their work.
Our public partners are currently working with us to develop our plans for this new ARC. This means they are helping us to decide what activities and tasks we will do to achieve our long-term goals.
For further information about how we involve public partners contact [email protected].
How we work with our Public Partners
We find lots of different ways to work in partnership with our public partners:
- mostly meet and work online
- occasionally meet in person and when they do, we try to make use of outdoor spaces
- meet in small groups to undertake specific projects
- share ideas by emails
- comment on documents
- chat informally
- attend events and conferences
- chair meetings and make presentations
- payment is offered for most activities
We occasionally share some opportunities that we think our public partners might be interested in but we cannot offer payment for.
How to get involved with us
Current opportunities: We will be recruiting new public partners in the autumn of 2026
Details: Check back later in the year for details about the roles