Get involved

The work of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Behavioural Science and Evaluation at University of Bristol is carried out for the benefit of everyone and it is only worth doing if it is going to make a positive difference to people’s lives. To make sure of this we need people like you to get involved in helping guide the research that we do.

To be involved you don’t need any medical experience or specialist knowledge, just some time to spare and a willingness to share your thoughts and ideas with us. We want to work with you to find how your experiences and ideas can help steer our research. Some ideas of how you might want to get involved are:

  • helping us to decide what to look at next
  • helping us to ensure that what we look at is important
  • helping us to build a network
  • working with us to develop our website.

Together we can decide what would best suit you and your other commitments.

“Our research focuses on improving and protecting the public’s health. We know that working with people directly affected by our research will ensure its relevance, success, and impact. We are committed to improving and developing new ways of working with patients, the public, and wider communities, to ensure public involvement remains a core component of what we do”.

– Carmel McGrath, Research Fellow in Public Involvement HPRU, University of the West of England

Next steps?

If you would like to know more about our public involvement work or discuss how you might be able to get involved, then please contact us admin-hprubse@bristol.ac.uk.

Current involvement opportunities

To  receive updates about the latest public involvement opportunities with us, please register your details on the People in Health West of England website.

Job description for public contributors

Download the job description for patients and members of the public who would like to help guide how we do our research.

Public Contributor Database

Our Public Contributor Database is made up of a group of public contributors who would like to be contacted to provide occasional public involvement support to researchers/research projects. Members recruited to the public contributor database can have limited public involvement experience as we can provide training to support and develop knowledge and skills in public involvement. Public contributors who are registered on this database may also be members of our Public Involvement (PI) Strategy Group.

Roles of public contributors on the database are to:

  • support researchers on a one-to-one basis with public involvement activities, including: review of participant information sheets, consent forms, recruitment processes, dissemination materials;
  • work as co-applicants on studies (support will be provided if required);
  • co-author academic papers;
  • attend public involvement training;
  • respond to rapid response public involvement opportunities when calls for research funding are announced at short notice and deadlines for grant applications are tight.

Public contributors on the database can also be members of the PI Strategy group.

There is no specific duration of commitment required.

If you are interested in joining the public contributor database, please contact admin-hprubse@bristol.ac.uk or carmel.mcgrath@uwe.ac.uk