Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement

NISEC II has a Programme PPIE Panel that includes public members and the PPIE Leads from each of the seven NISEC research centres. This panel supports the Steering Committee and Research Centres, that in turn support vaccines trials at Trial Sites.  The Trial Sites work with Communities to recruit participants.

Two-way communication and learning ensure that Community Engagement and public involvement influences decision making and promotes the inclusion of underrepresented communities in NISEC vaccinations trials & policy.

Our Aims

We aim to:

• Bring fresh expertise e.g. recruiting in under-represented communities
• Enhance the quality and relevance of all NISEC II research
• Meet the requirements of the UK National Standards for Public Involvement

Our activities

We have seven key tasks that support the NISEC teams to improve their inclusion and public involvement practices.

1. Create a Programme PPIE Panel to provide guidance and support to research teams. Our 11 panel members are a diverse group of people from across the UK.  We recruited our members through our Research Centres and our networks in the Centre for Ethnic research in Leicester.
2. Support research teams to increase the diversity of study participants. Our research centres have committed to using equality impact assessments, supported by the Centre for Ethnic Health Research in Leicester.  This approach helps researchers understand how to improve the inclusion of communities and individuals who do not usually engage with research.  Our projects also use equality monitoring of participants to help researchers understand how inclusive their recruitment is.
3. Support research teams to increase the diversity of their PPIE panels. We are working with our research Centres to understand how they work with the public when making decisions about their research.  On the 29th January 2025 we are holding a PPIE event as part of a face to face steering group meeting in Oxford.  Our research teams and public contributors will explore how we currently work with the public and see where we might improve by learning from each other.
4. Provide training for research staff and public members. Team members from each of the 7 NISEC Centres have been offered places on the Cultural Competence training offered by the Centre for Ethnic Health Research. 
5. Generate evidence of PPIE impact within NISEC research. We are currently planning how we will collect evidence of PPIE impact within our Centres and projects.
6. Communicate with stakeholders. We are currently planning our communication approach.
7. Engage with communities to understand the barriers to participation in vaccine research, the GRACE project.

Contact the PPIE Team

Meet the NISEC II PPIE Team

For more information about the NISEC PPIE team, based in the Centre for Ethnic Health Research in Leicester, please contact:

• Nasima Miah: nbm5@leicester.ac.uk, or

• Christine Smith: christinesmithconsultancy@gmail.com

Projects