Our goal within the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC): Wessex is to address health disparities and ensure that research findings apply to and improve outcomes for everyone. To achieve this, we have committed to increasing the diversity of the research workforce: who participates in research; and who informs and shapes research.
Research Inclusion will be central to everything we do and will be guided by some key questions:
- Who is most affected by this health inequality or disparity?
- Who is not currently ‘in the room’?
- What are the current barriers and enablers for involvement and participation and how can these be addressed?
- What conditions can we create to make research (system, processes and opportunities) more inclusive, accessible and trauma informed?
- How can we maximise the influence and impact of people and communities with lived experience expertise in health and social care research?
Who will make this happen?
Research Inclusion Group
We are establishing a Research Inclusion (RI) Group who will work internally across our research themes to provide equality, diversity, and inclusion expertise to our teams – staff conducting and leading on our research. They’ll ensure community perspectives are at the heart of the research being conducted.
The Group will consist of the core RI Team and 10 RI Champions: five champions from the community and five champions from ARC: Wessex teams. This will give us balanced and real-world perspectives.
Research Inclusion Network
We’ve also developed a Research Inclusion Network for those working in equality, diversity, and inclusion in external research and community roles across Wessex.
This Network will help us develop inclusive, accessible, and trauma informed research across our region. The Network will work alongside the Theme leads, Collaboration Hub leads, and the PPIEP pool and council. They’ll also directly inform the work of the core Research Inclusion Team and Research Inclusion Group.
Each of the four pillars of research inclusion is being led by a group of interconnected colleagues from ARC: Wessex:
- Research Inclusion, led by Professor Mel Hughes with support from Dr Kate Jupp
- Community Engagement and Inclusion (CEI), led by Caroline Tiza
- Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIEP), led by Annmarie Hankinson
- Knowledge, Mobilsation and Community Connector – to be confirmed