Illustration of a person holding puzzle pieces, with additional pieces floating around, symbolising planning

Stage 2:
Planning your involvement

Why it’s important

It's important to think carefully from the start about when you will involve public members in your project and the methods you will use to do so. This helps ensure public members are being involved at moments where they can meaningfully shape or influence your research, rather than being brought in after all the decisions have already been made. It also helps you budget enough time and money into your project proposal to carry out your public involvement plan.

Three people building something together, where an older man is helping a younger woman
A group of people sitting in a room, with the focus on a man engaging in discussion with elderly woman.

Common barriers

Developing a public involvement plan can be harder without guidance or examples on how public members can help to shape your work. This can be particularly true for quantitative and lab-based research, where public involvement is less common. It can also be difficult to balance being ambitious about your public involvement with being practical about what is feasible with the funding and resources available. Below, you'll find examples of how you can involve public members in each stage of your research, as well as guidance on how much money and time you can expect this to take.

When to involve public members

There are opportunities to involve public members throughout the research cycle. The stages in which you choose to involve public members will depend on your research aims, the type of research you're doing, and the time and money you have available. Click through the case studies below to see how other researchers have successfully involved public members in their work.

Figure adapted from original figure by the University of Oxford Medical Sciences Division

Who to involve

When thinking about who to involve in your research, there are a number of factors to consider including:

  • Experience: Are you focusing on a specific health condition or lived experience?

  • Skills: Do they need any specific knowledge or skills (e.g. working in a team)? If so, can you provide training to help develop this?

  • Demographics: Are there specific demographics you would like represented to reflect the diversity of the patient population?

How to involve them

There are many methods you can use to involve public members in your work. Here are some of the most common ones, including guidance on when each method works well.

Tip: Try to offer multiple levels of involvement throughout your project. Some people may want to be involved in a project from start to end; others will prefer a one-off workshop. Those who love numbers may want to dive deep into the analysis with you; those who are more creative could help you design a mural or infographic to share your findings.

Creating your timeline

When creating your public involvement timeline, it's important to leave enough time for recruitment before any involvement activities are due to take place. Then, think about the timepoints within your project where public members can make a meaningful contribution and clearly map those out so that both the research team and your public partners know what to expect. If public members will be reviewing or contributing to documents, make sure they're given enough time to do so properly, rather than asking them last minute.

Here is an example of what the timeline might look like for a one-off workshop:

Example of a timeline for a workshop, starting with preparing recruitment materials and building relationships one month before the event and ending with post event communication within one week of the event.

Tip from a public member: Things always take longer than you think they will! Budget more time for activities if you can.

Creating your budget

You should generally plan to pay public members £25 an hour for their time and contributions.

Payments can be made through bank transfer or shopping voucher, depending on public members' preferences and the payment processes at your institution.

If you're working with under 16s, this amount may vary and should be agreed in advance with the young people and their parents or teachers.

Here are some other things to consider including when creating your public involvement budget:

  • £5 per person per meeting for work from home expenses or to reimburse travel expenses

  • Refreshment costs

  • Venue costs

  • Access need costs (e.g. interpreters, assistive technologies, childcare)

  • Recruitment costs (e.g. social media ads, community organisation support)

  • Dissemination costs (e.g. designer, videographer, printing)

  • Training costs (if applicable)

  • Public involvement lead salary (if applicable)

Tip from a public member: Remember that your public involvement budget should be separate from any participation costs, such as vouchers for trial participants.

Evaluating impact

Evaluating your public involvement helps public members see the impact they've had on the project; shows funders and other researchers the value of public involvement; allows you to reflect on how to improve for future projects; and highlights for yourself how public involvement has helped you grow as a researcher.

You should plan to capture the impact of public involvement from the start of your project. Think about how the public involvement might impact the research itself, the research team, and the public members involved. Having these discussions throughout the project gives you a chance to improve your approach in real time, rather than waiting until the end.

When tracking impact, collect both qualitative and quantitative feedback from researchers and public members. This can be done through an anonymous feedback survey or through an open group discussion. Try to save time for this during meetings, rather than asking public members to fill out feedback forms in their own time. Then work as a group to reflect on what could be done differently to improve - focus on ways of working rather than individual contributions to avoid making public members feel like their own performance is being evaluated. Also think about which demographic groups were not represented in your project, and why that might have been (e.g. were there any barriers to involvement for them). Celebrate the positive impacts of your public involvement, but also be honest about any negative impacts so that future projects can learn from this.

One of my best experiences in public involvement was seeing how much our input shaped the research. What made it great was that we were really listened to, and it felt like our contributions truly mattered.”

- Asmahan Al Nidawi, public member

We recommend sharing back to public members at each meeting how their input has changed the project so far. You can do so using a 'you said, we did' table, such as the one on the right. If you do not act on a public member’s suggestion, it’s good to be transparent about this and explain the reason why - for example, maybe their idea isn’t feasible with the data or resources you have available. You can communicate this through a ‘you said, we didn’t because’ table.

Example of a 'You said, we did' table from a previous project. These public members mentioned it was difficult to recount personal experiences on the spot, so researchers shared interview questions with them beforehand

Frequently asked questions

  • In-person activities can be good for building rapport and doing hands-on tasks. They can also be more accessible for people who are less digitally literate. Online activities work well when you're involving public members from multiple locations, and they can be cheaper to organise. Hybrid meetings can also be a good option, but they require strong facilitation skills to ensure those online are able to contribute at the same level as those in the room. When in doubt, it's always best to ask the public members you're involving for their preferences.