Public Involvement in Research

The resources below have been provided by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).  These will be of use to anyone seeking to involve the public – for example patients, carers, service users, affected communities, or representatives/advocates of such groups – in their research.

NIHR defines public involvement in research as ‘research being carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them.  It is an active partnership between patients, carers and members of the public with researchers that influences and shapes research.

When using the term ‘public’ we include patients, potential patients, carers and people who use health and social care services as well as people from specific communities and from organisations that represent people who use services. Also included are people with lived experience of one or more health conditions, whether they’re current patients or not.’

NIHR’s Research Design Service provides guidelines and resources for researchers on involving members of the public in research.  These can be found here.

These resources include links to two previously delivered training sessions:

Video – RDS YH Public Involvement Presentation 2021 Part 1 & Part 2

And you can find here the slides that NIHR’s Research Design Service provides to researchers that sign up to its Grant Writing and Introduction to PPI workshops.

Elsewhere NIHR’s Learning for Involvement website provides an extensive repository of resources.