Developing a Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Process for UON.

Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) is defined by INVOLVE, the national advisory group that supports public involvement, as “research being carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them.” Patients and members of the public bring an “expert” insight into individual research projects because of their experiences of living with a particular condition or using health services. Involving PPIE contributors in research allows “the colour and nuance and diversity” of different types of knowledge to be valued and to improve research. Involving those with “lived experience” enables researchers to access a fuller understanding of the condition being studied and may help generate research, which is more ‘meaningful’ research. We will use the Holiday Activities and Food Programme Nutrition Education Research Project, led by Dr Declan Ryan, to pilot a new PPIE process that we hope to scale up into a UON institution-wide process.

The University provided funding to develop their first Patient and Public Involvement policy. The policy will enable the university to reimburse public contributors for their input into the university's research agendas, grants, and projects.