Public Involvement
Research Design Service provides advice and support and funding for researchers to ensure patients, service users, carers, and the public are fully involved in research development, design and delivery and dissemination. Public involvement is an important element of all research and can substantially strengthen projects.
Public involvement support
Our Public Involvement Lead and our Public Contributors give tailored advice on funder expectations and good practice in public involvement.
It‘s considered good practice to involve members of the public as early as possible in the research design process. Funding public involvement at the application stage can be challenging. The RDS ‘Public Involvement Fund’ aims to bridge that gap helping to facilitate public involvement in the development of research ideas and research applications. We offer small awards to support service user engagement where it will contribute to the development of a funding application (maximum £300 (£200 for online consultations) for a project application or £150 (£100 for online consultations) for a fellowship application). The application process for funds is via your RDS lead adviser, if you currently aren't registered for support with us please fill in our support request form. Please note that our RDS East Midlands PIF award scheme will end on 5 May 2023.
Enhanced Public Involvement Funding: RDS East Midlands (RDSEM) will provide financial support of up to £1000 to enable researchers to collaborate and ideally co-produce research with underserved groups. This funding will be available prior to submitting an application for funding to national, open, peer-reviewed funding competitions for applied health, social care and public health research. To apply, you will need to be registered with the RDSEM for a research application and working with one of our Lead Advisers. To register for RDS support please complete our support request form. Please note that our RDS East Midlands Enhanced PIF award scheme ended on 31 March 2023.
RDS East Midlands is supported by a diverse group of Public Contributors. They are involved with project support, events, practice interviews, application review and our governance structures. Our Public Contributors bring important experience and knowledge to our work and ensure we link effectively to the communities we serve.
RDS East Midlands’ public involvement workplan sets out how we support and develop public involvement and engagement in the East Midlands.