Research Ready Communities toolkit

Research Ready Communities is a programme designed by the NIHR to build more inclusive health and social care research together with communities. This toolkit includes a comprehensive set of resources designed to support the local delivery of the Research Ready Communities programme.

About the Research Ready Communities programme

Research Ready Communities is an NIHR Clinical Research Network community engagement programme. Piloted in three regions in 2021-22, all 15 Local Clinical Research Networks now deliver and/or support partner organisations to deliver Research Ready Communities programmes in their region. As of December 2023, there are over 20 Research Ready Communities programmes running in local communities across England, with over 100 Community Champions across England.

The aim of the Research Ready Communities programme is to build more inclusive health and social care research together with communities. This is so that long-term, health and social care research better reflects the needs and interests of all our communities. As a result, we will be better able to address health inequalities.

The programme achieves this by:

Building trusting relationships with communities over time;
Listening to and learning from people in the community about what they need from research for it to be more inclusive;
Co-designing and implementing activities with Community Champions and partners that respond to what’s heard from the community, in order to make research more inclusive.

About this toolkit

The Research Ready Communities toolkit is a comprehensive set of resources designed to support organisations to deliver the programme. It includes the following resources:

Safeguarding and risk management templates;
A master slide deck for communicating and presenting about the programme;
Resources for Community Champions, including an information sheet about the role, a code of conduct, and induction training materials.
Resources for partner organisations, including an information sheet about the role, a partnership agreement template, and a guide of sources for community grant funding in health research.
Community conversation and asset mapping guides and supporting resources.
A facilitation guide and supporting materials for delivering a Next Steps workshop with Community Champions and partner organisations.
Methods and resources for evaluating programme activities and impact.

Programme leads should familiarise themselves with the guide for programme leads and the contents of this toolkit before planning or starting programme activities. Some of the resources are designed to be adapted with information relevant to the individual programme.

General resources for programme leads

Research Ready Communities guide for programme leads - This guide is for individuals or teams delivering the Research Ready Communities programme. It is designed to provide guidance and support to members of staff leading the delivery of the programme.
Research Ready Communities slide deck - a template slide deck that can be adapted and used to present your Research Ready Communities programme for different audiences and purposes, for example, to promote the programme to potential partner organisations and Community Champions, or to share programme progress and impact with colleagues.
Research Ready Communities pilot programme report - An evaluation report outlining the activities, impact and learnings from the pilot year of the programme in 2021/2022.
Guidance on creating an agreed ways of working - A short guide on creating an agreed ways of working during the programme with your partner organisations and Community Champions. This should be done at the start of your programme once partner organisations and Community Champions are on board and have been trained.
NIHR Clinical Research Network's PPIE safeguarding guidance - This guidance was originally designed for NIHR Local Clinical Research Networks in their PPIE activities but provides useful considerations and guidance for safeguarding within the Research Ready Communities programme.
Public partner risk assessment template - This template was originally designed for NIHR Local Clinical Research Networks to risk assess their PPIE activities and can be adapted for use within the Research Ready Communities programme.

Partner organisation resources

Partner organisation information leaflet - an editable leaflet that can be used to provide potential partner organisations with information about the programme and their role.

Partner agreement form template - a template form for partner organisations involved in the programme to agree roles and responsibilities. It is also designed to support the safe and effective involvement of partner organisations and their members in the programme.

Community Champion resources

Community Champion information leaflet - an editable leaflet that can be used to provide potential Community Champions with information about the programme and their role.

Community Champion agreement and code of conduct - a template agreement and code of conduct for Community Champions that sets out what behaviours are expected of them during the programme, and what they can expect from you. The template also includes suggested guidance related to safeguarding and data privacy that should be adapted to your organisation's policies and processes.

About Me sheet - A sheet that your Community Champions should fill in at the beginning of the programme to let you know about them and their preferred ways of working. You can use the About Me sheets from all of your Community Champions to create an agreed ways of working together for the programme.

Community Champion training

You will need the following resources to deliver Community Champion training:

Community Champion training facilitation guide
Community Champion training slide deck
Training completion certificate - a template certificate that you can adapt and give to each of your Community Champions as recognition that they have done the training.

Training handouts:

Research participant examples handout - this handout should be used for the Examples of taking part in research activity (see slides 18 & 19 of the training slide deck). Aim to print out enough for participants to work in pairs.
One-to-one community conversation booklet - this booklet should be provided to participants for the practice one-to-one community conversations during the training.
Feedback form - this form can be used at the end of your training session to gather feedback from participants.

Community conversation and mapping resources

One-to-one community conversation booklet - this booklet should be provided to Community Champions to support the planning and running of their one-to-one community conversations during the training.
Group community conversation booklet - this booklet should be provided to Community Champions to support the planning and running of their group community conversations.
Community mapping booklet - this booklet should be provided to Community Champions to support the planning and running of their community mapping.

Next Steps workshop resources

These resources are designed to support programme leads to organise and deliver a Next Steps workshop with your Community Champions and partner organisations. These workshops should be organised after the Community Champions have run their community conversations and mapping activities to help bring together the findings from these activities and co-design next steps together.

The design and format of the workshop should be adapted and flexible to the preferences of your partners and Community Champions, and what you feel will work best to guide your 'next steps' planning discussion.

Next Steps workshop facilitation guide
What's in our community? template - this can be used for the 'what's in our community?' discussion during the workshop, either on screen or drawn out on a piece of flipchart paper.
Symbol cards - these cards can be used to group themes together, as described on page 21 of the next steps workshop facilitation guide.
Check-in activity - this activity can be used at the start of your workshop to see how Community Champions are feeling after running their community conversations and community mapping activities.

Evaluating and sharing programme impact

This set of impact tools have been designed to support you to evaluate your Research Ready Communities programme on an ongoing basis. They can also help you to share and demonstrate the impact of your programme for different audiences.

Impact tools for programme leads:

Programme lead activity log - This log is intended for use by Research Ready Communities programme leads and staff, to keep an ongoing record of programme activities. It should be kept up to date and filled in as soon as possible after each programme event or activity, to help capture the ongoing learnings and impact of the programme.
Event log sheet template - This document can be used at events by staff and Community Champions to record the quantitative interactions of any outreach activities. This format is designed as a tool to help you record on the go during an event with a simple tally system. This information can be later put into the Activity log for programme leads spreadsheet after the event.
Identifying and understanding your partnership ecosystem: Partnership and network mapping guide - this resource can be used to help you plan your Research Ready Communities programme by considering your existing partnerships. It can also help you to demonstrate the impact of the Research Ready Communities programme on your relationships, networks and partnerships.
Research Ready Communities Theory of Change (Powerpoint format) - The Research Ready Communities Theory of Change maps out the long-term goal and outcomes for the programme i.e the changes we believe the programme should be making. It demonstrates how programme outputs and activities contribute to these changes. It can be used as an evaluation framework for local programmes.
Research Ready Communities Theory of Change (PDF format)

Impact tools for Community Champions:

Community Champions case study template - This template is designed to help you guide Community Champions through writing down their experiences in the form of a case study for the Research Ready Communities programme. This can be used to demonstrate programme impact on an individual level, and more widely.
Participatory evaluation methods guide - This guide includes three activities that you can use to evaluate the impact of your programme in an engaging and participatory way with your Community Champions.
Group community conversations booklet - This booklet is intended to support Community Champions to hold community conversations, but the methods included in the guide could also be used as methods for evaluation activities.
Community Champion logbook - This logbook is designed to support Community Champions involved in the programme to (i) Reflect on their experiences of being a Community Champion over the course of the programme; (ii) Reflect on and record the impact of programme activities and events during the programme.
Community Champion feedback survey template - This template survey can be used to collect feedback from your Community Champions about their experience of being involved in the programme. It can be adapted for use digitally, for example, as a Google Form.

Impact tools for partner organisations:

Partner organisation case study - This template is designed to allow partner organisations to share their experiences in the form of a case study for the Research Ready Communities programme. This can be used to demonstrate programme impact on a community and organisational level, and more widely.
Partner organisation feedback survey template - This template survey can be used to collect feedback from your partner organisations about their experience of being involved in the programme. It can be adapted for use digitally, for example, as a Google Form.

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