Patient and public involvement

Public involvement is about members of the public working in active partnerships with researchers and research organisations. It’s also known as patient and public involvement, or PPI.

We use the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) definition of public involvement: “Public involvement in research is research carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them.”

Why get involved?

Patient and public involvement (PPI) is essential to our research.

There are lots of ways to get involved with our work, from advising on specific studies, to feeding back on our plain English summaries, to popping along to one of our research conversations. See the diagram by Louise, one of our public contributors that explains how members of the public can get involved at every stage of the research process.

Here’s what some of our public contributors have to say about working with us:

“I will use these valuable skills for the rest of my life”
– Nino, from our Young People’s Advisory Group

“I’ve seen how much the public voice is valued”
– Adele, from our PPI Strategy Group

“I’m honoured to be part of this research programme”
– Roy, Health Research Ambassador

To find out more, please get in touch with Lucy Condon on lucy.condon@bristol.ac.uk or Carmel McGrath on carmel.mcgrath@uwe.ac.uk. All our involvement opportunities are paid at the NIHR’s rate of £25 an hour.