Shared Commitment to Public Involvement

The NIHR School for Primary Care Research is proud to have signed up to the shared commitment to improve public involvement in research, alongside a range of health and care research organisations and members of the public.

What is the shared commitment?

Public involvement is important, expected and possible in all types of health and social care research.

Together, our organisations and members fund, support and regulate health and social care research. This statement is our joint commitment to improve the extent and quality of public involvement across the sector so that it is consistently excellent.

People have the right to be involved in all health and social care research. Excellent public involvement is an essential part of health and social care research and has been shown to improve its quality and impact. Together we aim to ensure people’s lived experiences is a key driver for health and social care research. 

When we talk about public involvement, we mean all the ways in which the research community works together with people including patients, carers, advocates, service users, and members of the community. Excellent public involvement is inclusive, values all contributions, ensures people have a meaningful say in what happens and influences outcomes, as set out in the UK Standards for Public Involvement.

Working together we will support the research community to carry out excellent public involvement.  We will provide or share guidance, policies, systems, and incentives.

We will:

• Listen to and learn from the people and communities we involve and apply and share that learning

• Build and share the evidence of how to involve the public and the impact this has

• Support improvements in equality, diversity, and inclusion in public involvement

• Promote the UK Standards for Public Involvement

We will embed this commitment into the decision-making processes of our organisations.

What will the NIHR School for Primary Care Research do to improve public involvement in health and care research?

At the NIHR School for Primary Care Research we are dedicated to continually improving how we work in partnership with patients, carers, communities, and the public. This includes identifying opportunities to share reflections and learn from others to improve and grow.

We are guided by our public involvement and engagement strategy which is monitored by members of the public through our public steering group.

As part of our own pledge to deliver on our strategy and the shared commitment, we will:

• Provide opportunities for public partners to meaningfully influence the SPCR’s decision-making. This includes sustaining our public steering group, public involvement in our Board and involvement of the public in our funding panels. We will continue to seek new opportunities to involve the public in influencing the direction of the SPCR.  
• Facilitate opportunities for training and knowledge-sharing within, and beyond, the SPCR community (including researchers, public partners and support staff) to build skills for, and promote, inclusive and innovative public involvement.
• Provide dedicated funding for public involvement, to support researchers to trial new and creative approaches to involvement, and enhance our understanding of involving communities under-served by research. 
• Foster a culture of reflection and improvement by regularly evaluating the ways in which we involve the public and providing opportunities for constructive feedback. Through this we strive to learn and enhance our public involvement activities and processes.

What other organisations are involved?

Organisations who have signed the Shared Commitment can be found here: The Shared Commitment to Public Involvement in health and social care research partners

Join the Shared Commitment

Organisations from across the health and social care research sector are invited to join our Shared Commitment. Find out how your organisation can get involved.