School of Health & Wellbeing

The Research Voices project won an Award for ‘Public Engagement with Research’ in the MVLS Engagement Awards 2019.

This unique project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, was set up in 2018 to use an adapted citizens’ jury to enable people with learning disabilities to deliberate on conceptual and practical issues within health research, and to make recommendations to the global learning disabilities research community.

The jury was recruited to be demographically representative, by age and sex, of the population with learning disabilities in NHS GG&C health board area. We recruited 12 jury members, 5 females and 7 males, ranging from 16 to 66 years old.

At all stages of the project we have adopted an inclusive approach, starting with the recruitment of our project staff, which was designed and conducted with input from a self-advocate with learning disabilities. Following a 5-month period of planning, capacity building and preparation designed to enable jury members decided on the question they wanted to deliberate through this process: How can people with learning disabilities influence health research? Including influencing:

• What research is done to help people with learning disabilities
• How this research is done

The citizens’ jury took place over 5 days, collecting evidence from ‘expert witnesses’ from academia, NGOs and a research ethics committee. Following this process the jury deliberated on the evidence and produced 10 recommendations for health research which will be published soon.

Throughout the project the jury members have demonstrated that, with the right support, they can deliberate on complex issues associated with health and health research. The group members have really valued the opportunity to have their voices heard and are highly motivated to ensure that health research is better informed by the experiences of people with learning disabilities. The group have built trust, confidence and mutual understanding whilst gaining considerable knowledge of research and research processes as a result of their work on the jury.

We are very happy that the hard work of the group has been recognised with this award! You can stay up to date with project developments on the Research Voices website.

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First published: 28 June 2018