Patient and Public Involvement

What is PPI? 

Patient and Public Involvement in research means that research is done ‘with’ or ‘by’ the public, not 'to' or 'for' them. It means that members of the public with relevant experience are actively involved in deciding how research is designed, conducted, and shared with the community.  

 

Members of the public can help researchers to make a lot of decisions, such as: 

• Making sure that researchers are asking questions that matter most to the ageing community. 

• Sharing experiences of ageing, healthcare, and technology to help design research that takes the needs of future participants into consideration. For example, have the researchers thought about why people may hesitate before trying a new technology? Or how the research could affect the daily routine of older people and their families? 

• Are researchers talking about their work in a way that is easy for members of the public to follow? 

• How will members of the public find out about the results of the research? 

Please note that public involvement means that members of the public work alongside researchers to discuss ideas and improve how the research is run. This is different to participating in research. If you wish to become a research participant, you can register with the Scottish Health Research Register (SHARE). 

How we involve members of the public in our research at the ACRC 

 

PPI is key in everything that we do at the ACRC and there are lots of ways that you can feed into our work. Some examples include:  

• Joining meetings (in-person or online) to discuss the plans for a research project and what research participants will be asked to do. Here, you could use your own experience of being in later life to suggest changes to the research proposal to make it easier for older adults to find out about the research and take part. 

• Helping to write and review information that will be shared with the public and making sure it’s accessible. 

• Helping researchers to interpret and share findings with the members of the public. 

Meeting each other face-to-face is not always possible and so we will provide ways for members of the public to input to our research from home wherever we can. 

 

Our PPI Network 

Our involvement network is always open to new members who would like to help shape our research.  

We want healthcare to be highly responsive to the wishes, priorities and needs of individual people in later life. 

This means that we’re looking for people to join our network who consider themselves to be in later life, who have experience of health and social care, and who are interested in how we can use technology and data to improve healthcare. We also invite family members or people who provide unpaid support to older adults to join us and share their perspectives. 

Our network members offer expertise based on their lived experience of ageing and care, as well as their personal and professional skills from other aspects of their life. 

By joining our network, you’ll have the chance to share your experience of ageing, healthcare, and data to shape our research so that it meets the needs of our community.  

 

Do I need to have experience in research? 

Previous experience of research isn’t needed for you to contribute to our work. We’re looking to hear from people from a range of backgrounds who have personal experience of ageing or caring for someone who is ageing. We can help you to find opportunities that interest you and we’ll support you to feel comfortable in your role. 

 

Payment and expenses 

We follow guidelines from the National Institute for Health Research and offer payment to our Network members to acknowledge the valuable contributions to our work. We also cover agreed expenses that Network members occur due to being involved in our work.  

The link to the expenses claim form is below:

Payment for non staff student expenses claim form

This form should be returned to acrc@ed.ac.uk once filled out.

 

Get involved 

We’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in getting involved in our work and would like to find out more. 

Please email acrcppi@ed.ac.uk for further details.

 Fill in this form to take part

 

How your information is used 

Your privacy is extremely important to us. Please read our PPI Privacy Statement to learn more about how your information will be used if you choose to get involved with the ACRC. 

Read our Patient and Public Involvement privacy statement