Public and community engagement with research (P&CER)
Enhancing the quality, relevance, and impact of King’s research to society
Through funding received from Research England, we have developed a programme of activities designed to build a community of practice in participatory research at King’s.
The activities, co-ordinated by Impact and Engagement Services (IES) and hosted by Science Gallery London (SGL) , include training, seed-funding, mentoring, and an Impact and Community Engagement summer school.
To date, the seed-funded projects are:
Dr Meg Peterson (Faculty of Arts & Humanities) and the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit collaborated on a pilot study using participatory approaches to co-design research with cultural entrepreneurs in West Bank, Palestine. The next stage of the project will focus on bridging theory and practice in a new course called The Technology and Music Innovation Program (TAMI), led by Jafra Productions based in Ramallah, West Bank.
This project, led by a team of peer researchers and academics from the Department of Women and Children’s Health (Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine), saw the team gain new PR skills, develop relationships with under-represented groups and community services, and co-produce a larger participatory research grant application to address health inequalities in maternal health outcomes.
A team of researchers from the Service User Research Enterprise (IoPPN) are working with Traumascapes to bring together diverse survivor-led organisations to co-develop and map the vision and underpinning principles for a survivor-led research programme. The group will also collaborate to develop a larger research grant application that addresses the interests and needs of their communities.
This project will see members of a Youth Researcher Panel collaborate with the RE-STAR team to co-develop the research questions, hypotheses and methods of an experimental neuroscience study. In the next stage of the project, the group will carry out and evaluate the experimental study.
Led by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a series of focus groups were co-designed with a Community Advisory Board of seven neurodivergent students who subsequently co-authored a case study detailing the methods undertaken, the challenges experienced and opportunities for co-design in participatory research to support neurodiversity in online education.
Jess Harris (Research Fellow, Policy Institute at King’s), Stan Burridge (Peer Researcher/ Expert by Experience) worked with a small group of individuals with lived experience of multiple exclusion homelessness to develop, shoot and edit a short film exploring their experiences of participating in research, and perceptions of inhibitors and facilitators. The film and an accompanying flyer are intended to support researchers to make participatory research more inclusive.
A team of researchers and public involvement specialists from the Cicely Saunders Institute ran a series of capacity building activities including; a bespoke PR training course delivered with Shaping our Lives (a user-led organisation experienced in research and inclusive involvement), a virtual co-production workshop which invited researchers and a diverse group of patients, carers and members of the public to discuss new research ideas, and the co-production of a series of case-study blog posts, led by patient and public representatives, about PR in palliative care.
King’s is home to a number of networks and working groups who develop PR related initiatives. They include:
A group of researchers who want to reshape ethical relations in community based research.
A community of researchers and professional service staff interested in participatory research.
A space for knowledge-exchange and research excellence around visual, embodied and art-based methodologies.
If you are a researcher or community member interested in finding our more about our participatory research programme, please sign up to the KERN Newsletter or contact Bella.spencer@kcl.ac.uk.
Enhancing the quality, relevance, and impact of King’s research to society
Discover a range of patient and public involvement activities
Find out more about the King’s Engaged Researcher Network