Public involvement in research is research carried out together. Involvement must be a process, not a ‘one off’ event.
Public involvement depends on open, ongoing dialogue.
Done well, public involvement increases the potential for research to help society, whilst also enabling society to help the research.
How we involve the public in what we do
In the School for Social Care Research, we value the expertise of people with lived experience of seeking and/ or using social care, carers, and people who work in social care.
When we talk about ‘the public’, we are talking about people who seek/use and/or work in social care and their informal/unpaid/family carers.
This includes:
- People who require and/or use social care support;
- Carers – people who offer unpaid care, usually family members, friends or volunteers
- People who work in social care, including direct care staff, commissioners and policy makers.
- At times, we also work with members of the general public who do not currently seek, use or work in social care, nor are they currently informal/unpaid/family carers.
We aspire to carry out research with and for the benefit of diverse groups of people and base our work on the principles of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion. This means that we are committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion in everything we do. Our research is shaped by diverse communities. We know that people experience additional barriers to participating in research associated with sex, race and disability and we aspire to work to remove these barriers to participating in research.
For more information about our approach and commitment to inclusion in research participation please refer to the NIHR Inclusion Strategy that guides our work.
