As we celebrate the fourth anniversary of the Shared Commitment to Public Involvement, the School for Primary Care Research (SPCR) reflects on its contribution to a growing movement dedicated to making public involvement meaningful, routine and achievable across health and care research.
Over the past year, our involvement in the Shared Commitment has opened up new opportunities to collaborate with organisations who share similar ambitions and face similar challenges. Through this community, we have been able to spotlight SPCR’s own public involvement activities, learn from others, and contribute to national discussions shaping the future of involvement.
Members of the SPCR Public Steering Group continue to represent us at Shared Commitment meetings and working groups, including those exploring the often hidden labour of public involvement roles. Their insights ensure that issues raised within SPCR feed directly into wider national conversations. We have also been able to use learning from these discussions to strengthen and evolve our own involvement work.
Sue Geary, public partner and SPCR representative within the Shared Commitment Group, shared her reflections:
“There is a wealth of knowledge and experience to be gained from other members of the Shared Commitment group, and from the guest speakers at the meetings. It is good to know that, as public contributors, we can help the SPCR be part of that shared learning.”
As active members of this community, we remain committed to collaborating, sharing learning, and continually improving how we support meaningful public involvement.
Over the last year, we have continued to meet our Shared Commitment objectives. We have worked closely with our Public Steering Group and ensured public partners play an active role in our Board and funding panels. We routinely seek feedback from those involved in our decision-making processes to help us remain inclusive, responsive, and adaptable.
We also launched our Involvement, Engagement and Dissemination Fund, supporting more than 40 small projects across the SPCR community. These projects have created new opportunities for researchers and staff to expand involvement, engagement, and dissemination activities in primary care research - fostering co‑production, strengthening collaboration, and enhancing the diversity and inclusion of the public and communities involved in our work.
This month, we are also launching a new training and development booklet for public collaborators. Bringing together existing training resources in one place, the booklet was developed in response to feedback that training can be difficult to find and that it is not always clear which opportunities are suitable for newcomers and which are better suited to those with more experience.
We look forward to building on these achievements over the coming year and contributing to this movement as we prepare to launch a new SPCR strategy for public involvement and engagement for 2026–2029.