3. The PPI Section
The PPI section is the main area of focus. Please respond to the question as asked in this section. The question may ask where PPI activity will occur in specific named sections of the research cycle. You need to outline who will be involved, the aspects of the work to which they will contribute, what mechanism you will use, e.g. focus group meetings, convening a PPI panel. Note also that it is likely that a reviewer will want to know:
- Do you have any previous experience of PPI activities? If not, do you have any facilitation or public involvement skills or experiences to reassure the reviewers that you will be able to and will be motivated to do this PPI activity?
- For this project, do you have access to PPI contributors (or potential contributors), e.g. via a support group or an NGO? Do you have a pre-existing relationship with those PPI contributors?
- Who will the PPI contributor(s) be? Can you be relatively specific about who they are? For example, instead of ‘we will bring together a PPI panel of survivors of ovarian cancer’, it would be better to say ‘The Irish Cancer Society has agreed to support the team to develop a PPI panel of survivors of ovarian cancer’ or ‘A pre-existing panel of survivors of ovarian cancer was developed for… This panel have agreed to support this project, if successful’.
- Has PPI input already helped to shape the application? If so, how did that happen? If not, at the very least, is the approach coherent with patients’ or carers’ perspectives as captured in other researchers’ work?
- As stated in Section 1, not all of stages in a research cycle would suit the input of a PPI contributor. If PPI does not exist within a particular part of the cycle, can you address why it is absent? Conversely, have you included anything that could be considered 'tokenistic involvement' where the PPI contributors cannot realistically contribute to the research cycle?
- How will PPI help to shape dissemination and pathways to impact?
- Are you using the resources of Trinity in shaping your project? Have you, for example, referenced the fact that you have done this module on PPI? Have you discussed your plans with a recognised PPI champion? Have you contacted the PPI Ignite Office?