The CaSE for engagement in research

What do members of the public really think about R&D and public involvement in research?

Earlier this year, the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) aimed to find out. In partnership with the National Centre for Social Research’s Centre for Deliberation and the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE), they brought together 33 members of the public across four sessions for a public dialogue.

These sessions form part of CaSE’s Discovery Decade programme which aims to make ‘R&D matter to more people’. For Rebecca Hill, advocacy and engagement manager at CaSE, the dialogue is an important step in reimagining the relationship between people and R&D in the UK, and ensuring that their voices are heard as part of the process. Previous CaSE opinion polling (from nine surveys reaching around 30,000 people) indicated that the public was not fully aware of R&D’s role in tackling many of societies biggest challenges.

‘If we truly want a society-centred vision for R&D in the UK, we must go about it in the right way,’ says Hill. ‘Our polling shows that people see R&D as important but not necessarily urgent … a lot of people think it’s a good thing to invest in, but if you ask them, “would you prefer to do this now or do you want to wait?”, many say, “R&D feels like a luxury, maybe we should fix all of the many other problems we’re facing and put R&D on the backburner.”’

The dialogue therefore focused on strengthening connections between the public and R&D systems by discussing the public’s emotional connection to R&D and the different ways in which the public can be involved in research. Held online in May, the participants were selected to reflect a cross-section of UK society. Ten weeks later, six of the participants were brought together in person and asked to reflect on the process.

‘I think I finally got my head around what R&D is about and why it’s so important,’ shared Kathryn Cooper, one of the participants involved in the dialogue. ‘It’s really broadened my outlook as well and I think I do feel really strongly now that people should be involved [in R&D].’

As part of the dialogue, participants co-created four principles, which ‘represent participants’ hopes, and address their concerns, about involvement in R&D’: They state that public involvement in R&D should:

•  use the public’s expertise to benefit the participants, the research and wider society
• provide everything that participants need to feel properly informed
• involve the right number of people with a range of experiences
• ensure that participants feel safe, heard and invested in the research

‘These aren’t the first principles or standards that have been written about public involvement by any stretch,’ says Hill. ‘However, NCCPE analysed them against other principles like the Sciencewise principles and the shared commitment and there’s a lot of alignment. This is good because it shows that the sector and the public actually care about the same things … inclusivity, transparency, diversity, trust, respect and empowerment.’

Interestingly, the dialogue revealed that participants did not feel that they needed to be excited about research to want to be involved in it, instead prioritising interest, societal benefit and learning or skills development. The dialogue process revealed that participants felt that public involvement could lead to better R&D outcomes so long as they feel like their participation is valued and they are made to feel welcome.

‘I think people see research as being about experts and perhaps are a bit frightened of it,’ Cooper says. ‘Or that they’re going to be out of their depth and perhaps that they don’t have a contribution to make. But they absolutely do. And I think that’s what I’ve really learned from this process.’

For CaSE too, the dialogue process has been enlightening.

‘It’s been a fascinating experience for us, and it’s shown us the real value of involving people and asking them questions,’ says Hill. ‘I think it can be quite othering to talk about the public and the R&D sector when we’re all part of the public. It can be scary to open up what you do, but the benefits of that – the fresh perspectives, the new ideas, the new questions – are just going to lead to research that better serves the society that I hope we all want to live in.’