Where does the involvement journey start? Collaborating on research funding applications

Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) is a requirement when applying for nationally competitive research funding in health and social care research. Much has been written about different approaches to and the impact of PPI in a wide variety of funded research endeavours. However, the involvement journey may start much earlier, which has led some to write about the variety of roles and value brought by involving patients and the public at the pre-award stage, including the potential to improve the project design and funding application. In this blog we’d like to shine a light on three different perspectives of PPI at the stage of developing bids. A public co-applicant, a researcher and a public involvement manager reflect on some of the highlights and challenges they have experienced and offer ideas to overcome these.