We aim to ensure that our research is informed by the views and experiences of the public throughout the life of our projects from concept to dissemination, as described in the shared commitment to improve public involvement in research.

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What is Public Involvement?

Public involvement in research is when the research is carried out with or by members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’, or ‘for’ them, to help ensure that it is acceptable, useful and easy to understand, and to ensure our research benefits from their views, expertise and lived experiences.

Depending on the needs of a particular research proposal, members of the public can be recruited to be broadly representative of the general UK population, or more of more specific local communities, age ranges, research study participants, patients, or service users, and public involvement can also include other stakeholders such as local authorities or health providers. Public involvement can include the following activities, though this is not an exhaustive list:

• involvement in identifying research priorities
• suggesting ideas for specific research projects
• acting as joint grant holders or co-applicants on a research project
• reviewing funding applications
• advising on the design of a particular research project (including study recruitment strategies)
• acting as members of a project advisory or steering group
• commenting and developing patient information leaflets or other research materials
• participating in discussions and focus groups with researchers
• helping to plan dissemination of research to lay audience

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How we undertake Public Involvement

We are able to draw on our partnership with Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Patient and Public Involvement panel, which is run by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Many of our individual research studies are also advised by panels recruited from study participants for example the EPIC-Norfolk Participant Advisory Panel.  We also recruit members of the public through our research partners, for example schools, community organisations or charities, to advise on the research goals and design of projects, for example working with adolescents and teachers in the development of the GoActive study.