Our partnerships with PPI

We established the PPI panel of the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium as an integral part of the project, ensuring the views of patients and the public were central to the success of the research.

• Discover our report ‘The impact of patient and public involvement in the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium’, which was written with our public contributors to advocate the positive impact of involvement in immunology research.
• Read our open access co-authored paper published in Research Involvement & Engagement ‘The impact of patient and public involvement on COVID-19 immunology research: experiences from the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium’, which provides practical suggestions of how to bring together basic research and the lived experience of patients and the public.

We managed the PPI element of the National Core Studies Immunity programme to facilitate involvement with COVID-19 research and, subsequently, co-produced tailored PPI training for the researchers involved.

• Explore our report ‘Patient and public involvement in COVID-19 research: bridging the gap between theory and practice’ which was produced with substantial contribution from a group of patients, carers and members of the public, and describes how research teams involved patients and the public in their work, offering insight into the challenges overcome, the lessons learned and the positive impact of involvement on the resulting research.
• Listen to three audio clips recorded by contributors to the report:
  • Why involve patients and the public in COVID-19 research? - Deb Smith
  • How can we encourage more researchers to involve patients and the public in their work? - Vivienne Wilkes
  • How can we best involve patients and the public in COVID-19 research? - Lynn Laidlaw
• Understand more about how we evaluated the project in our blog article ‘National Core Studies Immunity takes stock of lessons learnt from involving patients and the public in COVID-19 research’ and discover our infographic describing the successes, methods to drive improvement and how we reflected on our learnings.

We manage the Participant Involvement Panel (PIP) within the SIREN study in collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency team to connect the researchers with the study participants, which has been crucial to the design, delivery and success of the project.

• Find out more details in the blog article ‘How public involvement improved our study’ by Anna Howells from the SIREN team.
• Read our paper published in Research Involvement & Engagement "Demonstrating the learning and impact of embedding participant involvement in a pandemic research study: The experience of the SARS-CoV-2 Immunity & Reinfection Evaluation (SIREN) study UK, 2020-2023", which provides insights into how the PIP was established and the impact of involvement on the study. 

We support and project manage the CARINA Network, ensuring that the views of patients and the public influence the priorities of the project through involvement in the Scientific Advisory Board.

We’re facilitating the participant involvement and patient engagement within the STRAVINSKY study so people with lived experience of conditions that weaken their immune system are involved in the research being conducted and how the study is managed. 

We’re organising a new participant involvement element of the PITCH study to bring together health care workers and researchers to better understand participants’ views and perspectives on the science.