Public activity in research

Every week, hundreds of people help make health and social care research happen in Wales. Good quality research is essential to help us find new treatments and ways to improve health and care services. This research is not possible without the support and contributions of the public.

This can be through participation in individual research studies. It can also be through people sharing their time and personal experiences to help inform the priorities, design, delivery and implementation of research, so that it is more relevant to people’s needs. This is known as public involvement in research.

For people to be able to take part in research, we need to tell them that research is happening and how important their participation and involvement is. What we all do to tell people about research is called public engagement.

Health and Care Research Wales believe that meaningful public involvement is important for undertaking good, safe and ethical research and should be a routine and normal part of the research process.

When we talk about the public/members of the public we mean carers, patients, family and friends of patients, potential future patients and people who use health and social care services.

To make it easier to find out what public activity you could help with and how, we have split it into three sections:

Find out about research

Find out about health and social care research happening or planned to take place in Wales and beyond.

Read about other people’s experiences engaging with health and social care research.

If you have already helped or taken part in research, you can share your experience with others, to let them know that research is happening in Wales and how everyone can do their bit to help.

Take part in research

Find out about the research studies taking place in Wales and the UK and see if you are eligible to take part.

Taking part in studies can take many forms, from completing a survey about your experiences of a situation or condition, donating a blood sample or taking part in a study of a medicine.

Help with research 

Use your experience as a member of the public to help researchers design and conduct their research studies. You could be using your lived experience as a patient, carer or service user to share what is important to consider and how the research plans may impact on those people who will be taking part.