LifeArc joins public involvement pledge to improve health research

LifeArc has joined the Shared Commitment to Public Involvement, alongside more than 25 other leading health and research organisations such as the Health Research Authority (HRA), the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), NHS England, and Cancer Research UK (CRUK). This pledge aims to drive up standards of health research by improving the quality of public involvement.

We believe that involving patients and the public in the research process is essential for translating promising scientific discoveries intro breakthroughs for patients. By listening to those with lived experience, we can better understand where we should focus our efforts and improve the way we design and carry out research.

Patient impact is at the heart of what we do, and over the last few years we have been building our partnerships with patient communities to ensure our work is focused on real unmet needs. This pledge demonstrates our commitment to doing more and playing an active role in driving forward patient and public involvement in translational research. We want to see more growth in this area, not just for us, but for the entire science and research community. Joining the Shared Commitment also provides a valuable opportunity to connect with other organisations, share what we’ve learned, and work together to solve challenges in public involvement.

“Working in partnership with patients and the public is essential for achieving our mission at LifeArc, accelerating promising science to bring medical breakthroughs to patients faster. Patients bring valuable expertise to research, and we need to ensure this is routinely integrated from the earliest stages of development. We are delighted to join the Shared Commitment and work with partners to advance public involvement and help scientific discoveries reach their full potential.”

Dr Karen Skinner, LifeArc’s Chief Project and Portfolio Officer and sponsor for this pledge

Looking ahead, we are taking steps to strengthen our patient and public involvement through the upcoming launch of our patient engagement framework at the end of the year. This will include new tools and resources to help us involve the public and patients more effectively in our research.

We’ve been working with a patient advisory group to develop the framework, and in 2025 we’ll be expanding this group to ensure that the voices of those with lived experiences continue to guide our future plans. In addition, we will soon be launching some guiding principles for patient engagement, outlining our commitments and specifying how we plan to work with patients and the public moving forward.

The importance of public involvement

This initiative was launched by the HRA in March 2022 in response to a reduction in public involvement in research during the COVID-19 pandemic. Funded in part by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Recovery, Resilience, and Growth (RRG) programme, the Shared Commitment is designed to help organisations improve the extent and quality of public involvement in health and social care research.

Public involvement in research means actively including people, such as patients, carers, and members of the community, in shaping and guiding research projects. This helps ensure that research is relevant, inclusive, and more likely to address real-world needs, leading to better outcomes for patients and the wider community.

“It’s great to have LifeArc join our Shared Commitment to Public Involvement. Together we are sending a very strong message to the research system that public involvement in research is essential and must be taken seriously. The evidence is that better research results from involvement, and better research delivers benefits for patients.”

Dr Matt Westmore, HRA Chief Executive

Embedding public involvement in health and social care research

The Shared Commitment 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.’

Organisations who have signed the Shared Commitment include:

Join the shared commitment

Organisations from across the health and social care research sector are invited to join our Shared Commitment. Find out how your organisations can get involved.