Over the past decade, there has been steady movement within health, health services and social care research towards greater and more meaningful involvement of patients, communities and other members of the public in all aspects of the knowledge creation and translation process. This has impacted the way priorities are set, funds are awarded and research projects are conducted, both in Europe and in North America. This has included major policy shifts within the NIHR (UK), NIH and CDC (US), CIHR (Canada), and the creation of major patient-centred funding initiatives such as PCORI (US) and SPOR (Canada). In Ireland, the Health Research Board (HRB)'s Research. Evidence. Action. HRB Strategy 2016-2020 includes a defined commitment to develop and promote public and patient involvement (PPI) both within the HRB and HRB-supported projects and programmes. Specifically, over the next five years, the HRB will develop initiatives aimed at strengthening the involvement of patients and the public in health research in Ireland. It will encourage greater levels of user involvement in the design and conduct of research activities and engage in more effective knowledge exchange and dissemination activities that will influence decision-making, adoption and/or scale-up of healthcare interventions. A key initial step was to assess the needs of the public and research community around PPI. Results of HRB's 2016 Public and Patient Involvement survey: How would you support public and patient involvement in research? reported, among other findings, a desire from the research community for: • Practical help for researchers who want to include PPI in their research • HRB to build awareness of what PPI can offer for researchers • Opportunities for 'match making' • Training for researchers/healthcare professionals • Training for public/patient representatives The proposed PPI Summer School therefore addresses this described need to build capacity among researchers, as well as among community and clinical stakeholders, to meaningfully engage with each other in the creation of evidence, policies and interventions that will impact health and health services in Ireland. It will deliver skill-based workshops on basic competencies identified in a previous needs assessment (Salsburg, 2012) as valuable and necessary for researchers and partners to engage in high quality PPI research.

The PPI Summer School will be delivered over the course of 1.5 days. The agenda for each day will include a keynote presentation and an number of parallel skill- or method-oriented workshops, selected from a list of workshops developed by members of the GEMS PPI Research Unit. The topic and guest speakers for the keynotes will be determined yearly based on availability, but will always cover a current issue in PPI research. Each parallel workshop activity is 2 hrs in duration. The actual selection of workshops will be rotated from year to year, but will always cover key competencies in PPI research. The list of workshops from which each year's program will be selected include: • Finding Research Partners • Participatory Learning and Action (PLA): research strategies for co-generating and analysing data • Ethics, Governance and Partnership Agreements • Dilemma Café - Exploring key questions in PPI practice • Collaborative Research Grant Development • Collaborative Data Analysis • Dissemination Planning with Partners • PPI in PhD Research Projects Note: some workshops may be offered in multiple time slots to make them more available to students. Day 1 Programme Welcome Keynote 1 Tea/Coffee break Parallel Sessions 1 • Workshop 1a; Workshop 1b; Workshop 1c Lunch Parallel Sessions 2 • Workshop 2a; Workshop 2b; Workshop 2c Networking Dinner Day 2 Programme Parallel Sessions 3 • Workshop 3a; Workshop 3b; Workshop 3c Tea/Coffee break Keynote 2 Closing remarks Workshop Descriptions: Finding Research Partners This workshop will discuss issues and strategies for identifying and engaging with appropriate research partners from the patient, community, health service and policy domains. It will include a workshop exercise and a take-home tool. PLA strategies for co-generating and analysing data This workshop will explore the use of Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) research to co-generate and analyse data in partnerships with community, academic and health sector partners. It will focus on the use of PLA in a Health Research Board funded research project and will include take-home resources. Ethics, Governance and Partnership Agreements This workshop will discuss ethical considerations particular to community and patient partnered research. It will also introduce different governance models used to allow partners to share research decision-making. A role-playing exercise will help participants work through some of the issues involved in creating a partnership agreement. Dilemma Café: Exploring key questions in PPI practice A dilemma café involves people coming together to discuss several dilemmas experienced by participants. A dilemmas café may be on any topic, e.g. science, parenting, social work. Collaboratively Developing Research Grants This interactive workshop will introduce some of the issues involved in collaborative research design; including, how and where public and patient partners can contribute to your research protocol from identifying priorities through to the grant writing process. Collaborative Data Analysis This workshop will introduce students to methods and strategies for undertaking both qualitative and quantitative data analysis in partnership with non-academic stakeholder partners. Dissemination Planning with Partners This workshop will explore the role stakeholders can play in effective knowledge diffusion and dissemination. It will explore the relationship between message-messenger-audience through use of a dissemination decision-making tool. Public & Patient Involvement in PhD Research Projects This workshop will discuss issues that students may encounter when undertaking a participatory project as part of their PhD thesis research, and strategies for navigating them.

Learning Outcomes: This 3-credit module provides an overview of the principles and practice of PPI research, and gives students an opportunity to practice key skills and tools with experts in the field. Upon completion of this course, the participants should be able to: • Identify and engage research partners in both community and clinical settings • Develop a research agreement • Develop a participatory research proposal • Create context-appropriate dissemination strategies • Be able to apply a PLA research process • Confidently apply PPI principles in their thesis research

Upon completion, students will • Gain confidence in working with non-academic research partners. • Empower non-academic stakeholders to co-lead the research process • Understand the value of PPI and how it will increase quality of research outputs

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This module takes the form of a 1.5 day intensive summer school. Content is delivered through a combination of lectures, hands-on workshops, networking discussion groups, and self-directed study. The module was designed by members of the GEMS PPI Research Unit (including Prof A Macfarlane; Dr J Salsberg) and is delivered by the course designers along with invited experts from each of the workshop areas, including members of community service organisations, the HRB and national health charities. Each student will participate in 3 workshops of their choosing (2 hrs each). Workshops offer students the opportunity to practice skills and use tools under the guidance of experts in that area. Plenary lectures provide detailed insight into important topics in PPI. Networking discussions (around meals and between sessions) allow students to meet experts in the field and discuss other issues that may not have come up in the individual sessions. Self-directed reading provides the student with the necessary background material for the topics and skills to be developed during the summer school.