Our public partnerships strategy outlines our ambitions for creating effective collaboration and genuine partnerships between researchers, Medical Research Council (MRC) staff, public involvement and engagement professionals, individuals and communities.
Public partnerships are how people and the research community can come together to shape and share scientific research. Public partners include members of the public, patients and voluntary and community groups, both in the UK and internationally.
Public partnerships are important because sharing knowledge and experience improves the relevance of research, making it more likely that everyone will benefit.
In addition to the strategy we have developed:
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- an action plan to show how we will achieve our strategy
- guidance on payment for public partners
We have created two videos, available on YouTube, to explain our partnerships strategy:
How it’s going so far
In year one of the strategy, we have been raising awareness of public partnerships with colleagues in MRC head office and our research community, supported by guidance and training resources.
We consulted public partners on the refresh of our science Strategic Delivery Plan and have been piloting ways of involving public partners as funding assessors.
We have awarded £2.5M to improve the understanding, design and practice of public involvement in non-clinical research through our Better Methods Better Research initiative. We are facilitating networking and cross-project working for the awardees and look forward to the evidence base that the awards will create.
We launched a funding opportunity to support public involvement in MRC research at the earliest stages and continued to share good practice examples of where public partners have shaped research.
With the appointment of a new Programme Director, we will work with research leaders to support them to understand, champion and reward public partnerships.
We are excited to begin planning a new public advisory group to guide ways of working and ensure effective public partnerships throughout the MRC research community. We will also begin developing MRC communities of practice in public partnerships, with a focus on non-clinical research.
For more information, see our Action Plans.
How we co-developed our new strategy
A key recommendation of the MRC public involvement review was that we co-develop our new MRC public involvement and engagement strategy.
We worked with an external advisory group run by Vocal to gather insights, suggestions and views about future MRC priorities. We held five workshops with researchers, MRC staff, public involvement and engagement professionals, members of the public, patients and voluntary and community groups, based in the UK and internationally.
In the workshops we explored:
- what people would like to see in the MRC public involvement and engagement vision and priorities
- what would be needed to deliver it in practice
Following the co-development workshops, we continued to work with Vocal, the external advisory group, and sought input from other stakeholders.
We consulted on the draft strategy and used findings from the online consultation to inform the final MRC public partnerships strategy.
The consultation findings are summarised in an infographic and full consultation report.
An external advisory group member has shared her personal perspective on working in partnership to power more equitable health research.