The NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Centre and the NIHR Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration Mission have joined other health and social care bodies in a pledge to improve public involvement in research.
In December 2025, we signed up to a formal Shared Commitment to Public Involvement in Health and Social Care Research.
The Shared Commitment has been developed by the Health Research Authority (HRA) and aims to bring about changes which will drive up standards in health and social care research. More than thirty national health organisations across the UK have already signed the shared commitment.
The Shared Commitment statement
The statement, signed by leaders at each organisation, reads:
Public involvement is important, expected and possible in all types of health and social care research.
Together, our organisations and members fund, support and regulate health and social care research. This statement is our joint commitment to improve the extent and quality of public involvement across the sector so that it is consistently excellent.
People have the right to be involved in all health and social care research. Excellent public involvement is an essential part of health and social care research and has been shown to improve its quality and impact. People’s lived experiences should be a key driver for health and social care research.
When we talk about public involvement, we mean all the ways in which the research community works together with people including patients, carers, advocates, service users, and members of the community. Excellent public involvement is inclusive, values all contributions, ensures people have a meaningful say in what happens and influences outcomes, as set out in the UK Standards for Public Involvement.
Working together we will support the research community to carry out excellent public involvement. We will provide or share guidance, policies, systems, and incentives. We will:
· listen to and learn from the people and communities we involve and apply and share that learning
· build and share the evidence of how to involve the public and the impact this has
· support improvements in equality, diversity, and inclusion in public involvement
· promote the UK Standards for Public Involvement
We will embed this commitment into the decision-making processes of our organisations.
