At King's, public and community engagement with research (P&CER) describes the many ways that public and community groups can interact with and shape research.

Meaningful engagement and involvement should equally value academic and non-academic skills and expertise, and aim to generate benefits for everyone. Done well, P&CER enriches research – improving its overall quality and relevance to society.

Researchers and professional service staff undertake a range of P&CER activities depending on who their audience is and what they are trying to achieve.

This can include:

Dissemination-focused activities

• Designed to inform, educate, or inspire. Can help to raise public awareness around a piece of research or share its findings and impacts with specific non-academic stakeholders or wider society.

Conversation-based approaches

• Focused on two-way engagement, seeking feedback or perspectives from public, patient or community groups to incorporate their thoughts and feelings into the research process. This could help shape how research is carried out or how it impacts could be maximised.

Collaboration

• Equitable working with public or community groups as partners or leaders in the research process. Enables co-learning and co-created knowledge which can increase the relevance and impact of research.

There are lots of benefits to be gained from P&CER, including:

For research:

• Research shaped by the public and targeted communities is more responsive to societal needs, making it more relevant and impactful
• Improved research design, including more appropriate data collection and analysis method, through input from diverse voices
• Enhanced recruitment and retention of participants in research studies when shaped by non-academics
• Research outputs connect with their intended beneficiaries at an earlier stage, increasingly the likelihood of economic and societal impact

For researchers:

• Enhanced understanding of the societal relevance and impact of their work
• Increased visibility and recognition of research
• Opportunity for professional development and personal growth, particularly around communication skills

For publics engaged and involved:

• Opportunities for meaningful participation and influence in research that affects them
• Access to new knowledge and research
• Opportunity for personal and professional skills development

Over the last decade, funders have reinforced the importance of high-quality engagement and involvement in research, recognising the benefits it can bring to research and researchers.

Funders such as UKRI, Wellcome, NIHR, along with many others, actively encourage and often require the engagement and involvement of diverse public and community groups, such as patients or others with lived experience, to both shape the research itself and to maximise its societal impact.

Ethical approval is typically not required for P&CER activities if you are not collecting research data from those you are engaging.

While ethical approval may not be required, we encourage research undertaking any kind of P&CER to follow relevant ethical practices, such as getting informed consent, allowing anonymity, ensuring participant well-being and following data protection guidance.

Find out more about research ethics at King’s. 

When planning a P&CER activity, it's important to consider how you will monitor, capture and evaluate the effectiveness and impact of your programme or activity.

If you are a King’s Researcher, please see our internal SharePoint site where you can find guides and resources on how to embed evaluation into your P&CER projects.