Each year researchers in Grampian can apply for funding from NHS Grampian Endowments. The grants are open to medical, dental, scientific and clinical staff. They are aimed at funding one year’s pilot research projects, which might have an impact on health and social care within NHS Grampian. In 2019, 31 applications were received and 19 were successful. You can find the list of successful projects here.*
In 2019, for the first time, we asked researchers to include details of any public involvement activity they had to support the research question, the design of their study or the outcome measures. We also asked what public involvement and engagement activities they were planning for their research. Members of the public were invited to review and score the public involvement section of the applications, as well as the lay summaries.
We found that
- Applications with a high Public Involvement score generally had also a high researcher reviewers’ score.
- Lay summaries were often too technically worded and not easy to understand
- The differences between Public Involvement, Public Engagement and Recruitment were not well understood
As a result, we plan to include more guidance on Public Involvement in the next call for applications.