Involvement in research planning template for researchers
This page aims to support you to plan and consider how to involve people with arthritis in your research. Work through this form and shape your ongoing plan for involvement with people who have lived experience – involving them from the start! The text in the right-hand column is a guide and can be deleted as you add your plan.
Download the planning templateDefine your aims | Consider why you are involving people? What are you hoping to achieve? What do you need people’s views for? What will this influence? |
Consider who you need to involve | Who should you involve? Think about representativeness. Do they need to have experience of the research topic? |
How will you find people to get involved? | Where are you going to reach people? Could you work together with a patient or community organisation? What networks or groups exist? How many people would you like to involve? |
When do you need to involve people to meet your aims | Identify the key stages of the research project that you would like to get people involved. Ask people where they think they could add. There are always more opportunities throughout the project than you think. |
Identify what they will specifically do | What approach or method will work best at what stage, for example, reviewing study materials, part of a meeting discussing recruitment and retention strategies, or co-delivering presentations. What way are you going to involve them? E.g. one-to-one discussions, written feedback, group discussions, managerial roles or potential for people to be co-applicants? Think about how you will build relationships with people as part of your team, value their contributions and sharing the decision-making power. It’s important to offer a range of ways as different contributions may suit different people. |
Explore some of the practical considerations upfront | Think in advance about the time and resource to deliver this well. Communication is key – plan how and when you will do this, giving thought to your language, setting expectations, ensuring transparency, providing enough information to enable meaningful contribution and feeding back to people on the difference they have made. Think about how technology could help you. Think about accessibility of venues for face-face meetings, as well as travel & meeting times and how this can be flexible to support people’s needs. What training and support, is available for staff and people with lived experience - does your institution provide anything? |
Costs | Budget in line with the activity above. Will you provide payment to involved people and how? Will you cover travel and other expenses? Does your institution have a policy that covers individual circumstances e.g. how payment may affect welfare payments, tax etc. Are there non-monetary ways to recognise time, skills and expertise? Think about all the costs that may arise including room hire, catering, parking, printing, stationary, virtual meeting subscription (e.g. zoom) etc. |
Impact | How will you evaluate how patients were involved and influenced research decisions? This can provide insight into how to develop and improve involvement activities in future. |