Looking back at how our “Discover your Role” action plan has advanced public involvement with health and Care Research Wales

With the launch of Research Matters, Health and Care Research Wales’ ambitious and wide-reaching three-year plan to continue building on the momentum seen in the Welsh research community in recent years, we look back on the successes and challenges of our public involvement work over the last three years, and the valuable lessons we will take into the future.

In Autumn 2019, Health and Care Research Wales embarked on a plan to develop a public engagement and involvement strategy and overarching framework for our activities. This action plan, titled “Discover Your Role”, was created through close collaboration between public contributors, public involvement leads, researchers and Welsh Government officials. Published in January 2021, this plan was designed to map out the next three years of public involvement work to be undertaken by Health and Care Research Wales up until March 2024.

The interconnected goals of “Discover Your Role” have significantly increased public involvement and engagement in the Health and Care Research Wales community. This initiative began with the establishment of our Public Engagement and Involvement Forum. By fostering discussions, peer support and best practice sessions among members of the public in collaboration with other stakeholders, we've improved the role of our public members in designing events that take a holistic view of our community, ensuring the representation of all stakeholders' voices.

Public contributors now actively take part in Health and Care Research Wales governance structures and building on this success, we are actively encouraging more members of the public to join our community to assist with this work.

To ensure buy-in from our stakeholders, we now require all funding applications to outline public involvement plans using the UK Standards for Public Involvement as a framework. This ensures transparency in the implementation of public involvement in the projects we fund.

As part of our commitment to streamlining our public involvement work, we've developed with the UK Five Nations group new payment guidance for stakeholders, to reduce administrative barriers to involvement. In Wales, we are at the forefront of developing a public-facing version of this guidance. To support stakeholders with these new expectations, we've curated a suite of online training resources, offering a sustainable and cost-effective way to deliver training for more effective public involvement in research.

This integrated approach extends to our new public engagement strategy, "Where would we be without research?". Public contributors, researchers and Health and Care Research Wales staff collaborated to create this multi-platform campaign, incorporating public engagement events, digital content and a podcast series. The aim of the engagement strategy is to increase awareness of research and encourage public involvement from the ground up.

We have actively evaluated and provided feedback throughout the progress of the "Discover Your Role" action plan to stakeholders, to see what is going well and what can be improved. By sharing our findings through website blogs, case studies, and public events like conferences, we are enabling all stakeholders to see the positive impact public involvement has had on the work we fund.

With the start of the “Research Matters” plan, looking back on the successes and challenges of “Discover Your Role” has allowed us to learn valuable lessons that we are taking with us on this exciting journey. We want you want to join us in our endeavours so sign up to our public bulletin today to find out more.

Watch Professor Kieran Walshe and Alex Newberry talk about the "Discover your Role" at the November 2023 Public Engagement and Involvement Forum