Logo for the UK Standards for Public Involvement

Welcome to the UK Standards for Public Involvement in Research website

Cogs representing the six UK Standards for Public Involvement

Better public involvement for better health and social care research

The UK Standards for Public Involvement are designed to improve the quality and consistency of public involvement in research. 

Developed over three years by a UK-wide partnership, the standards are a description of what good public involvement looks like and encourage approaches and behaviours that are the hallmark of good public involvement such as flexibility, sharing and learning and respect for each other. 

The standards are for everyone doing health or social care research and have been tested by over 40 individuals, groups and organisations during a year-long pilot programme. They provide guidance and reassurance for users working towards achieving their own best practice.

Find out more about: 

The standards:  The six UK standards and their supporting materials, including downloadable documents in different formats. 

Putting the standards into practice: the standards were put into practice by a wide range of groups and organisations between April 2018 and May 2019 . The learning and experience of these pilots have been used to refine and finalise the standards. 

Project background: The development of the standards, including feedback gathered from a public consultation carried out in 2017. 

Acknowledgements

• The UK Public Involvement Standards Development Partnership group would like to thank everyone who gave their time and input to the development of the standards. 

• A special thank you to the pilot implementation teams across the UK, who used the standards for a year and shared their experiences. 

• Thanks to everyone that took part in the initial workshop, the consultation, and shared their views via Social Media. 

• We also thank; Maryrose Tarpey for the analysis and reporting of pilot data (2019); The North East Research Design Service and their Public Group for supporting analysis and reporting of public consultation (2017) and members of the Standards Network 2017 – 2019.

Contact us

If you have any issues navigating the site or would like to contact us:

NIHR

E: PublicPartnerships@nihr.ac.uk      T: 020 8843 7117

Public Involvement and Engagement Team, Health and Care Research Wales 

E: research-involvement@wales.nhs.uk       T: 02920 230457