Involving people with lived experience in your project design and the development of funding applications is important.

We would expect to see real collaboration with people with lived experience. Your application should demonstrate partnership in decision-making throughout.

Things to remember when involving people with arthritis at this stage:

Evidence of collaboration in considering and refining the design based on lived experience involvement is key in your application. A partnered review of the aims and steps needed to get to the patient (pathway to impact), agreeing that the project moves us forward, and that it is the best approach (e.g., could it be done quicker or differently) would do this.

This stage offers an opportunity to get valuable input from people with lived experience into the involvement plan for the complete lifecycle of the project. Also, If relevant, co-production could involve developing an approach to participation, including building an understanding of how to recruit diverse groups, ethical acceptability, review of documents, and exploring participant 'burden' (for example, number of visits and hospital parking costs).

There are lots of useful resources available on how to involve people in project design which are referenced below.

How can we support you?

• We can share opportunities to shape research with our research partner network (people with lived experience interested in research involvement). 
• We can support with development of relevant research partnerships through Versus Arthritis’s Young People and Family Team, organisations in our community involvement network or Your Rheum
• We can provide letters of support for your applications.
• Take a look at our pages on how to involve people with arthritis in conducting, monitoring and disseminating your research, as early planning is important for you, the quality of your involvement, and will be seen positively by funders.

Useful resources

Designing research | NIHR helpful guide on ‘How to write a plain English summary’ and thinking about your audience. Links to principles for meaningful involvement of patients and the public in health research.

PPIE Planner (plan4ppie.com) A planner to help support you through your PPIE work.

How to incorporate patient and public perspectives into the design and conduct of research - PMC (nih.gov) A list of international resources to help and guide with PPIE

Facilitation Tools for Meetings and Workshops (nihr.ac.uk) The Urgent/Important grid on page 15 could be helpful in design decision making and prioritisation.

It’s important that your budget reflects your involvement and engagement plans, with adequate resources allocated. Ensure you have a ringfenced budget for PPI – set alongside clear plans which are regularly reviewed and updated.   Click here for further information on costing PPIE into your research.  

PPIE case studies