Trinity has been accepted as part of a pioneering €1.75 million initiative to help researchers involve the public at the very start of the health research process, hoping to improve the relevance of research and improve financial accountability.
The grant will change the way research is undertaken in Trinity. Public input will be possible at the design stage of a project, as opposed to only after plans have been made and research undertaken. The idea is that the research will be undertaken in collaboration with the public, rather than for or about them.
The aim of this initiative, PPI Ignite, which is run by the Health Research Board and Irish Research Council, is to “build capacity” for patient and public involvement in research.
PPI Ignite aims to enable researchers to involve the public from the very beginning of their research, as opposed to just in the final stages, as is the general practice. Research conducted by the Health Research Board found that the main reason the public are not involved in research from the beginning is not because researchers do not want them involved, but rather that they do not know how to involve them. PPI Ignite intends to overcome this.
The programme will be led in Trinity by Prof Mary McCarron, the Dean of Health Sciences and the lead applicant for the grant.
In a press statement, McCarron said: “The TCD-PPI Ignite award will allow Trinity to engage researchers, members of the public and patients to advance quality research, share good practice, and develop tools and techniques to underpin sustained involvement.”
A PPI Ignite office will be set up in Trinity which will act as a hub for the programme. The office will help researchers to understand the best ways to achieve patient and public involvement in their projects.
The office will allow researchers across the College who are engaging in patient and public involvement to co-ordinate and collaborate with each other. Trinity’s PPI Ignite team will also provide workshops and training events as well as online modules and proposal development assistance. This will ensure that Trinity researchers have the tools, resources and ability to effectively engage with the public in their research.
Trinity’s PPI Ignite team anticipate that members of the public involved in research will contribute in a variety of ways such as in identifying the research priorities of the project, data collection and eventually acting as ambassadors to communicate and even eventually to help translate research findings, bringing them out of the lab.
The scheme is a part of the Health Research Board’s 2016 to 2020 strategy, which commits to strengthening and developing patient and public involvement.
