Helping to shape research...
The RViR partnership was formed when NHS England Research and Innovation asked for proposals to help underserved communities become more involved in research, as part of their ICS Research Engagement Network Development (REND) Programme. Their aim was to ensure research is fully representative.
Action Hampshire with partners: HIOW ICS, University of Winchester and University Hospital Southampton, felt the best way to find out how to involve underserved communities was to ask them, and the best way to ask them was through the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise organisations (VCSE) from those communities and so Raising Voices in Research was developed.
It was split into two phases:
Phase 1 (Dec 2022 - March 2023) 11 VCSE organisations gathered recommendations from their communities on how to make research more accessible for them. These were collated into a Local Plan for Research, a pledge and a communications toolkit.
Phase 2 (Sep 2023 - March 2024) 8 new VCSE organisations gathered recommendations from their communities on how to make research more accessible for them, resulting in a revised edition of the Local Plan for Research. These VCSE organisations as well as some from phase 1, worked with researchers to put these recommendations into practice in local research projects.
Shaping the Conversation (April – October 2024) We ran a project that built upon the work delivered as part of Raising Voices in Research. You can read more about this project, called ‘Shaping the Conversation’, by following this link to our news article.
Phase 3 (April 2024 – March 2025) This current phase has focussed on developing and strengthening the pre-existing RViR outputs.
We've just launched a new, bespoke RViR website!
Follow this link to visit our website
Want to get involved?
Are you a VCSE organisation, researcher, or research organisation representative interested in supporting under-served communities to take part in health research? Join our Research Collaborative, where members share research opportunities, best practice for engaging under-served communities, and work together to address engagement challenges.
Follow this link to join the RViR Research Collaborative
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The project partners:
