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How can we understand and evidence the impact of Public Involvement and Community Engagement in research?

In this blog, Dr Angela Wearn, Research Fellow in Public Involvement and Community Engagement for the ARC North East and North Cumbria (NENC) introduces a new resource for researchers to help them to evidence the impact of Public Involvement and Community Engagement (PICE) in their work.

The NIHR ARC NENC recognises how important it is to monitor and evaluate how public and community input shapes our research, so we can continue to strengthen our work, support inclusive practice, build strong partnerships, and demonstrate the impact of PICE.

Embedding evaluation into our ongoing activity, and supporting teams to choose evaluation approaches that fit their projects, is key to this.

What do we mean by impact?

‘Impact’ refers to the contribution, or difference, that public partners make throughout research, from shaping study design, to influencing how research is carried out, to informing how findings are shared and used.

The NIHR expects research teams to plan for, assess and evidence this impact as part of good research practice. This includes understanding how involvement shapes research, identifying what works well, what could be improved, and clearly demonstrating how the public have informed decision-making and outcomes.

Public partners also play a central role in developing our approach to PICE evaluation, ensuring that it is transparent, inclusive and grounded in lived experience.

Choosing the right approach

To support research teams in selecting approaches that suit their projects and contexts, we have developed a short summary of commonly used PICE evaluation frameworks.

The resource outlines the strengths, limitations and potential uses of each approach, helping teams quickly identify methods that align with their work and can be explored further.

Read our summary of commonly used evaluation frameworks

You can also read a recent review on this topic, co‑produced by ARC researchers and members of our Public Advisory Network, here: Understanding meaningful public involvement in health and social care research – ARC

If you would like to know more about the ARC NENC’s approach to Public Involvement and Community Engagement please email [email protected]