A new Public Collaborator Training and Development Booklet has been soft launched to strengthen the skills, confidence, and knowledge of people involved in patient and public involvement (PPI) in research.
Public collaborators, including patients, carers, and members of the public, play a vital role in shaping research by sharing time, insights, and lived experience. Their contributions help ensure that research is relevant, meaningful, and grounded in real needs.
The booklet has been co produced by the Exeter Collaboration for Academic Primary Care (APEx) Public Collaborator Group and the NIHR School for Primary Care Research PPIE Leads Group. It brings together a wide range of training and development opportunities designed specifically for public collaborators and will be updated regularly as new opportunities become available.
The resource is organised into three areas, Research Methods, Interpersonal Skills, and Public Collaborator Roles, with each offering Explore, Grow, and Support levels to help people find training that matches their experience. It includes recorded webinars, guides, and learning materials, and will link to live sessions throughout the year. For our soft launch, we are launching part one of the booklet (Research Methods), with the other two sections to be launched in the near future.
The booklet was developed in response to feedback from the public that training can be hard to find and that it is not always clear which opportunities are suitable for beginners or for those with more experience.
The booklet is free to download and open to anyone involved in research. Researchers may also use it as part of their induction for public collaborators.
Click here to go to the booklet
Upcoming live training and development opportunities
Alongside the booklet, regular training and development opportunities will continue to be shared for public collaborators. Please see below details of our upcoming live session:
- Public Collaborator Training – What is the Research Process? - Tuesday 24th March 13.00 – 14.30 (Led by: NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South West Peninsula (PenARC))
- Public Collaborator Training – Reviewing Plain English Summaries (or Lay Summaries) - Thursday 21st May 13.00 – 14.30 (Led by: NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and University of Oxford)
Share Your Ideas and Contact Us
We welcome suggestions for additional resources and training opportunities. If you are running an upcoming training session for public collaborators or would like to organise one, we would love to hear from you. If you have content you would like to add to the booklet, we would also be happy to receive it.
Please contact spcr@keele.ac.uk.