Patient and Public Involvement

Being involved in research is different to being a patient who is given a new treatment as part of a project like a clinical trial.

Patient and public involvement (PPI) is about people who are not experts in research working with us to design and run projects. This might be somebody who is a patient now or somebody who was a patient in the past. It might be a parent, carer or family member of a patient. It can be any member of the public with an interest in research. All of these people have a point of view that is different to ours and can add something to our projects. Many also have expertise in areas outside of healthcare that we do not have, and this can help make our work and research better. We have the science covered – we need to know what patients and members of the public think! We call people who do this work patient advocates because they advocate (speak) for patients.

You do not need to have any special qualifications to be a patient advocate. We provide training to suit you, and we work with people from lots of different backgrounds with lots of different experiences. We believe it is this variety that makes our research better for patients.

There are lots of ways to get involved and not all of them take a lot of time. You can find out more about what kinds of things you could do below.

Most patient advocates contribute from home and do not have any special qualifications or experience in healthcare or research. Patient advocates do not need to be experts in science or technology to contribute.

Before you join you will be given a role profile, which is a document explaining exactly what we want you to do. Most of our projects have money available to pay you for your time and travel expenses. This will be written in the role profile.

If you decide to work with us on a project, you will meet the team and find out more. This is an opportunity to ask any questions you may have. You will be given a main person to contact, and together you will agree what training you need. If you have never been a patient advocate before, you will be offered a mentor or buddy (another patient advocate who can support you while you learn).

We are proud to be located in the diverse city of Birmingham and we believe that involving lots of different people in our research makes it better. We welcome people from all over the world, from different backgrounds, ethnicities, ages and genders, and create a safe space where everybody has an equal say.

There may be times when we work with children, young people, or adults at risk. The university has a policy in place about keeping people safe.

We collect your name and email address when you join us. We only collect data that we need and never share your data with anyone else. All our staff have data security training every year. You can read more about how we protect your data.

The Digital CRCTU Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement booklet (PDF, 10.3 MB)