Involvement, Engagement & Dissemination Fund

The NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR) is launching a new Enablement Fund to support public and community involvement, engagement, and dissemination activities across its nine member departments.

The purpose of this fund is to support SPCR researchers and member departments in expanding their involvement, engagement, and dissemination activities, with the goal of fostering further opportunity for co-production and collaboration and enhancing inclusion and diversity of the public and communities in research.

Two funding streams are available:

• Project-specific activities: Funding is available up to £2,000 for activities seeking to enhance public and community involvement, engagement and/or dissemination activities within a specific project.

• Department-wide activities: Funding is available up to £5,000 for activities seeking to enhance public and community involvement, engagement and/or dissemination activities across a SPCR Member Department (this includes activities which span multiple department projects and/or multiple SPCR member departments).

Overall the scope of the fund is wide to support activities which would enable:

• the delivery of new and creative approaches to involving, engaging and/or disseminating research findings to relevant public and/or community audiences

• the expansion of current involvement, engagement and/or dissemination plans to a greater diversity of public and/or community audiences

Applications may include activities like co-designing accessible project outputs for public audiences, creative engagement approaches, or developing new partnerships with community groups.

Further information about the scope of fund is provided in the guidance notes.

Deadlines and Timelines:

The fund will run in three rounds across 2025–26, with a rolling deadline to ensure greater opportunity for applications across the membership.

 Note: All activities must end by 31st March 2027. Projects can be a maximum duration of 12 months. 

Eligibility 

The call is open for researchers and staff affiliated with an SPCR member departments. 

We welcome applications from individuals all career stages and especially encourage submissions from PhD students and early career researchers. Please note that PhD Students should obtain approval to apply from their supervisor. 

Only one department-wide application will be accepted from each SPCR member department each round.  We therefore require department-wide applications to be discussed with your Head of Department and/or SPCR Senior Leadership Team so applications can be prioritised internally, if required. 

For the project-specific stream, applicants are only able to apply once each round. If funding has already been awarded to a project through this fund applicants can apply for another round, but this application will need to clearly demonstrate additional added value above any funding already received through this fund. 

If applicants are unsuccessful they may also be invited to apply again to a future round. 

How to apply:

Please ensure you review the guidance notes for this fund before for applying.

You may also wish to review the list of projects funded in round one, listed below. 

To apply, please submit your application via our online grant portal: https://nihr-school-for-primary-care-research.grantplatform.com/ 

Lead applicants responsible for completing and submitting the application will need to register on the online grant portal to apply. 

If applications are received after the submission deadline for the round, they will be reviewed as part of the next round.

 For any further questions or support in developing your application, contact your local PPIE lead or SPCR Public Involvement & Engagement Manager, Halle Johnson (halle.johnson@bristol.ac.uk or spcr@keele.ac.uk)

AWARDED projects TO DATE:

• Addressing long term cardiovascular risks after adverse pregnancy outcomes (Project-specific activity, Dr Brook Hodges, Keele) 
• Decluttering primary care in England to improve patient safety (Project-specific activity, Yuan Tian, Manchester) 
• Conversations Through Dil Ki Baat: Mental Health in Later Life (Project-specific activity, Dr Jahanara Miah & Dr Rathi Ravindrarajah, Manchester) 
• OCEAN (Older adults with Complex EmotionAl Needs) Research Involvement Community (Project-specific activity, Dr Katie Saunders & Dr Tom Kingstone, Keele) 
• Using creative methods to understand Somali women' s health experiences and co-create empowered communities (Project-specific activity, Dr Lucy Johnson & Francesca Godfrey, QMUL)
• Voices: A co-produced psychosis soundworld (Project-specific activity, Dr Viet-Xuan Elen Williams & Dr Natalie Shoham, QMUL)
• Storytelling to Undo Stigma: Sharing Patient Experiences of Recurrent Vulvovaginal Pain (Project-specific activity, Dr Tori Ford, Oxford) 
• Grandma's House (Department-wide activity,  Adele Horobin & Joanne Morling, Nottingham) 

• In Partnership: Connecting Communities and Primary Care Research (Department-wide activity, Alisha Newman, Bristol) 

• Building Momentum: Extending Inclusive Research Engagement in Primary Care (Department-wide activity, Dr Jane Vennik & Dr Sascha Miller, Southampton)