In the growing literature on public involvement in research (PIR), very few works analyse PIR organisational and institutional dimensions in depth. The People in Health West of England team explored the complex interactions of PIR with institutions and bureaucratic procedures, with a focus on the process of securing institutional permissions for members of the public (or ‘research partners’) and academics involved in health research.
They used a collaborative autoethnographic approach to describe the process of validating ‘research passports’ required by UK NHS trusts, and the individual experiences of the authors who went through this journey – research partners and academics involved in a qualitative study of PIR across eight health sciences projects in England and Wales.
Their findings show that research partners encountered many challenges in the process, as the overall bureaucratic procedures and the emotional work required to deal with them proved burdensome. The effects were felt by the academics too who had to manage the whole process at an early stage of team building in the project.
Their thematic discussion focused on two additional themes: the emerging tensions around professionalisation of research partners, and the reflexive effects on PIR processes.
In the concluding section, they make a number of practical recommendations. Project teams should allow enough time to go through all the hurdles and steps required for institutional permissions, and should plan in advance for the right amount of time and capacity needed from project leaders and administrators.
Their findings are a reminder that the bureaucratic and organisational structures involved in PIR can sometimes produce unanticipated and unwanted negative effects on research partners, hence affecting the overall quality and effectiveness of PIR. Their final recommendation to policy makers is to focus efforts on making PIR bureaucracy more inclusive and ultimately more democratic.