Shared commitment to public involvement

AMRC is committed to embedding public involvement in health and care research. You can find below the shared commitment to public involvement, our organisational commitments and our briefings on patient voice.

Shared commitment

In March 2022, AMRC, in collaboration with funders, regulators and research organisations across the UK signed up to a shared commitment to improve public involvement in research which we hope will help bring about changes that will drive up standards in health and social care research.

Read about our experience and lessons learnt in the year since we signed up to the commitment: Shared commitment to public involvement: where were we, where are we, where next?

Other signatories were: Health Research Authority, National Institute for Health Research, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, Cancer Research UK, Health and Care Research Wales, Health and Social Care Northern Ireland, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, NHS Research Scotland, Universities UK, UK Research and Innovation and Arc North East and North Cumbria.

The statement, signed by leaders at each organisation, reads:

Public involvement is important, expected and possible in all types of health and social care research.

Together our organisations and members fund, support and regulate health and social care research. This statement is our joint commitment to improve the extent and quality of public involvement across the sector so that it is consistently excellent.

People have the right to be involved in all health and social care research. Excellent public involvement is an essential part of health and social care research and has been shown to improve its quality and impact. People’s lived experiences should be a key driver for health and social care research.

When we talk about public involvement, we mean all the ways in which the research community works together with people including patients, carers, advocates, service users, and members of the community. Excellent public involvement is inclusive, values all contributions, ensures people have a meaningful say in what happens and influences outcomes, as set out in the UK Standards for Public Involvement.

Working together we will support the research community to carry out excellent public involvement. We will provide or share guidance, policies, systems, and incentives. We will:

listen to and learn from the people and communities we involve and apply and share that learning
build and share the evidence of how to involve the public and the impact this has
support improvements in equality, diversity, and inclusion in public involvement
promote the UK Standards for Public Involvement

We will embed this commitment into the decision-making processes of our organisations.

AMRC's organisational commitments

As part of the development of this statement, AMRC developed our own organisational commitments.

Emphasising the importance of patient voice will be a key priority for AMRC and our members this year. AMRC will:

help share best practice and learning between our members, highlighting innovative approaches to involve patients and the public in a meaningful way;
review our internal approach to encourage and support patient centricity, including working with others to ensure patient voice is appropriately represented;
recognising the diversity of our membership, support charities to include the patient voice at different stages of the research lifecycle, signposting resources and identifying areas that need further thought and discussion.