PPIE for lab-based researchers
Meaningfully involve people with arthritis in lab-based research
We know it’s not always easy to meaningfully involve people with lived experience (PWLE) in lab-based research. This page aims to guide you through tips, resources and support to help you with this.
Working with people with lived experience of arthritis can bring real benefits to all types of research, including research based in the laboratory. This is why we expect to see involvement across all our funded projects.
Your guide to involving people with arthritis
Involving people from the very beginning of your research ensures that the research is accountable. It can focus you and your team, bringing clarity to the areas that will benefit people with arthritis. It is also a way to demonstrate the importance of discovery science.
Start by working out what you want to achieve.
By doing this you can then work out who to involve, how and when to involve them. Aims of involving people with arthritis could be:
- To decide research areas to focus on
- Help define the outcome measures or important outcomes of your project
- Have people with lived experience advocate for the importance of this area of lab-based research
- Help you to communicate your research
- To build you and your team’s understanding of what living with arthritis is like
- Inform the development of your lay summary or plain English description of your project
PPIE for Lab-based, Discovery Science | Arthritis UK Webinar
How can we support you
Fundamentals of PPIE
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Checklist for planning your involvement
Developing an involvement plan before you begin will maximise the benefit of your activities and ensure that they are suitable and accessible for people with arthritis.
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Involvement In Research Planning Template For Researchers
This document aims to support you to plan and consider how to involve people with arthritis in your research project or programme.
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Diversity and inclusion of PPIE groups
How to improve the diversity of voices in PPIE partnerships by proactively seeking out communities who are underrepresented.
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Communicating in lay language
Learn how to engage diverse audiences with clear accessible language and compelling narratives.
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Research involvement request form
Complete this form if you would like to access our lived experience voices/network to co-produce your research, get in touch whether you are funded by us or not, from industry or academia, we are here to help.
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Arthritis UK good practice guidelines
Working in partnership with people who have lived experience of arthritis, we have developed our Arthritis UK Good Practice Guidelines for Involvement to share our expectations with our colleagues, health professionals and researchers.
Resources
- Early-Discovery.pdf (pemsuite.org) Section 1 is a how-to guide for patient engagement in the early discovery and preclinical phases, it also includes a helpful section (from page 14) on managing expectations when working with patients.
- Can patients be involved in preclinical research? - BMJ Open Science. This includes a helpful case study from a lab-based scientist, as well as ideas on how to incorporate PPIE into your work in the “Where Next?” section.
- Patient involvement in basic rheumatology research at Nijmegen: a three year’s responsive evaluation of added value, pitfalls and conditions for success | BMC Rheumatology (springer.com) - the results section offers insight into understanding the barriers that research partners may feel when involved in lab-based work, and how facilitators can overcome these.
- Writing a grant application | Diabetes UK has helpful guidelines on writing a good lay summary with useful examples.
Below are some helpful documents that discuss patient and public involvement in animal research.
- Transparency and Public Involvement in Animal Research - Pandora Pound, Ricardo Blaug, 2016 (sagepub.com)
- Read the paper about how researchers involved patient collaborators for machine learning applications in rheumatology.