I am sure many of you will have heard the legend about the Trevi Fountain in Rome which inspired the 1954 film 'Three Coins in the Trevi Fountain' and title song. It says you must throw three coins into the fountain: the first guarantees your return to Rome, the second leads to a new romance,... Continue Reading →
A town hall meeting in Camden held a mirror up to public engagement British style and it wasn’t pretty
I was at Camden Town Hall on Monday night with a couple of hundred other citizens. We came together to talk about clinical research and I got a real kick out of it. The occasion was the first ever 'Clinical Research Education Event' held in the UK by the American non-profit organisation, the Centre for... Continue Reading →
Understanding why people with rare diseases lose out on research may help those with other more common conditions @rarediseaseday
I once told a conference that it was my perception that rare disease communities were in a stronger position to put research at the top of the agenda; that patients, carers, clinicians and researchers found it easier to get around the table in these areas, were able to work more closely together and mobilise for... Continue Reading →
Public engagement in research must break through its rose-tinted glass ceiling #engage_2015
On Wednesday a consortium of 15 research funders and Universities UK led by the Wellcome Trust published its report 'Factors affecting public engagement by researchers.' The Wellcome Trust launch website is here and the report itself can be found here. It's an important piece of work; a 'state of the nation' commentary on public engagement activity across... Continue Reading →
The Govt’s Accelerated Access ‘Innovation’ Review: mid-term report @AccelAccess #medtech
Having sensibly bought itself another 6 months to do the work, last week the Government's 'Accelerated Access Review' published its half-term report. Headed by Sir Hugh Taylor the review is looking at how to get new treatments and technology in the hands of patients quicker. It is an important review and all the better for... Continue Reading →
Review of public involvement in NIHR published #ppiextramile
Hot off the presses: Almost a year to the day that the Director General Research and Development/Chief Medical Officer commissioned a strategic review of public involvement in the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the final report and recommendations have today been published. Simon Denegri, the National Director for Patients and the Public in Research... Continue Reading →
Who are the good, the bad and the ugly at involving the public in medical research? New comparative figures for Government, charities and industry
What should we make of the latest figures from INVOLVE and the Health Research Authority (HRA) showing which funders are best at public involvement in research? In a re-run of an joint-exercise first done in 2010, INVOLVE and the HRA looked at the public involvement component of over 1100 research applications that went before research ethics... Continue Reading →
An aside on the Royal Society’s life with Brian and Coxing science through the election
So the Royal Society has appointed Professor Brian Cox as its new Professor for Public Engagement in Science at the University of Manchester. The physicist who is becoming increasingly eponymous with science on TV in the same way that the broadcaster and naturalist, David Attenbrough, has with wildlife programmes, or Janett Street-Porter became associated with youth programming in the... Continue Reading →
A pox on www! Has the humble website become the public engagement tool of choice for the lazy scientist?
Or should that be a pixel! If you want a brief but mind-boggling, diversion from the tedium of your day then look no further than 'internet live stats' which shows the number of website, blogs, tweets and other social media stuff being created every second of every day. Into this miasma do our scientists, research... Continue Reading →
