Getting involved in the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) means you can help shape what research we do and how we do it. Your involvement can improve the quality of research we carry out.
How will I be involved in research?
There are various ways that patient and public involvement contributors help shape research.
It might include helping researchers identify the most important questions for research or the most important outcomes, helping design projects that make it easy to take part, helping to make sure any written materials are easy to understand, and helping to share the results of research.
You might take part in a discussion group, review research information sheets, or join a project advisory group. You can read about the some of the previous involvement projects we’ve supported in these links:
- Help us improve how research interacts with electronic health records
- Preventing dementia – join our focus group for a new research project
- Patient and carer involvement in early psychosis research
What experience do I need?
We ask that everyone who registers with us has personal experience of or an interest in mental health and / or dementia; and an interest in making health research the best it can be.
This might experience of a condition or illness that you have, or have had. It may be of caring for someone. It might also be of your experience of using treatments or services, or of taking part in research.
As a member of the public, a specialised knowledge of research or medicine is not needed.
What is important is that as a PPI contributor you are able to bring your own knowledge and experience to the research process.
What will I gain?
People choose to get involved in research for a whole range of reasons. Maybe you have personal experience which you would like research to take into account; you want a chance to give something back; or you would like to develop new skills.
Our Patients and Research Group has told us that being involved has helped them better understand their condition or the condition of people they care for. It has also helped connect them to others, given them hope and increased their confidence.
We provide training and support to help you get the most out of your involvement with us. Everyone who gets involved in helping to shape our research is offered reimbursement for their time and expenses. There is information about this in out PPI payment policy.
How can I get involved?
To keep in touch with our Patient and Public Involvement opportunities, please register to be part of our PPI contributor group:
- Complete your details in this registration form
- Or email claire.murray@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk with ‘Register for PPI updates’ in the subject
We ask everyone who is part of our patient and public involvement to engage in line with the principles for our strategic Patients and Research Group. Where people are unable to follow these principles we reserve the right to remove them from the PPI contributor group.
