How to use an engaged research approach | Grant funding

What is an engaged research approach?

Engaged research is an umbrella term that captures different approaches to embedding engagement into research. This can include community engagement, patient involvement, policy engagement, working with lived experience experts or any other approach that brings a diversity of perspectives into your research process.

An engaged research approach embeds stakeholder perspectives across the research lifecycle - from agenda setting, funding, and research design through to implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. It typically involves building relationships, sharing power, and using inclusive and equitable methods. Engagement should not be a stand-alone activity but an integrated part of your research. An engaged research approach can involve a variety of methodologies, frameworks, and skills to appropriately engage relevant stakeholders at key points.

Engaged research looks different across disciplines and research proposals. The modes, methodologies, and frequency of engagement should vary in line with what best suits your research - the key questions, relevant stakeholders, and the intended objectives for engagement contributing to the work.

Using an engaged research approach in Wellcome funding applications

Wellcome encourages the use of an engaged research approach and, where used, expects applicants to describe this clearly in their funding application. This should include the activities, resources you’ll need, and why engagement is important to your research and the people involved.

As part of their application, we encourage researchers to outline who their stakeholders are, how they have been involved in the design of your project, notable points of collaboration and how key stakeholders will be involved in the decision-making process for aspects linked to the support they provide.

Proposals should clearly show how engagement is embedded within your research and how it contributes to your overall aims and design. Engagement activities should occur during your award's lifetime and during the time allotted to your work. The costs associated with it should be outlined in your application. Please note that if these activities and costs are not included at the point of application, you will not be able to apply for additional funding for engagement later.

Outlining an engaged research approach is particularly important if you are applying to one of our Mental Health funding calls. In our Mental Health programme, we recognise lived experience as a vital form of expertise. It is central to shaping our strategy, delivery and decision-making, and is a requirement in our Mental Health funding. If your research involves lived experience experts, please read our guidance on embedding lived experience in research.

If your engagement plans need to change during your award, please let us know so we can ensure they continue to align with the ambitions outlined in your original proposal.

How to take an engaged research approach

To help embed engagement across your research lifecycle, consider reflecting on the following questions. These are not exhaustive, so use them as prompts to develop an approach that fits your project.

Agenda Setting

Can you articulate how engaging with key stakeholders will shape different aspects of your work and meet the needs or ambitions of your research aims?
Are you engaging with and involving the stakeholders most affected by your research?
Have you considered power dynamics, trust or accessibility issues that might affect who can meaningfully take part?

Funding and research design

Have you built in the relevant expertise into your research proposal and research design?
Have the team created a plan for ensuring the knowledge and insights of people with lived experience are embedded throughout the research at multiple stages, and at multiple levels?
How are you ensuring that engagement activities are being done in a fair and ethical way, using inclusive methods across different stages of the research?
How are you recognising and valuing this expertise — for example through authorship, budget, or leadership roles?
How will you ensure participants can influence decisions and not just give feedback?

Implementation

Can you describe how you plan to use inputs from different stakeholders, and what approaches you would take to navigate conflicting ideas or differing viewpoints?
Have you considered how or when feedback will be given and when you might need to communicate with key stakeholders?
Have you allocated funds to all required activities, including ensuring appropriate compensation for contributors' time and expertise?
Have you considered what fair recognition, compensation, and acknowledgement of stakeholder inputs will look like in your research activities and outputs?
Have you developed approaches to manage existing power and resource differentials between stakeholders?

Monitoring and evaluation

Have you considered what information you need to record to monitor the potential impact of your activities and how this can be undertaken in an inclusive way?
Do the measurement and evaluation indicators provide relevant information to demonstrate how engagement has advanced the aims of the research?
Are there indicators to assess whether and how engaged stakeholders may benefit from contributing to the project?

Identifying stakeholders to engage with

Engaging with your stakeholders as early as possible will help ensure your research is appropriately designed, resourced, and implemented. It will also enable you to plan, cost, and staff your award effectively.

Think about who is closest to the issue, who holds or lacks power, and who may be most affected by the outcomes of your research. You may also wish to work with intermediaries who can help build relationships or bridge gaps between research and community needs.

Stakeholders can include:

the public (for example, general public, lay perspectives, under-served groups)
the community (for example, community groups, community advocates, patient and carer groups, members living in geographic areas where research will be conducted)
policymakers (for example, policy groups, advocacy groups, advisory committees or government bodies)
researchers (for example, people using similar methodologies in different fields, people researching the same topic but with different disciplinary, methodological orientations or‚ key networks)
intermediaries (for example, clinicians, cross-sector representatives, service providers, civil society groups or professionals who can help foster understanding and uptake or professionals who can help foster understanding and uptake)

Your engaged research approach may include one or more of these groups. In your application, please explain who you are working with, why, and how they will influence your research.

Distinguishing engagement activities from dissemination

There are many ways to engage with your stakeholders throughout your research, and we are open to a range of activities. These activities could include:

focus groups
surveys and questionnaires
stakeholder dialogue
patient panels
patient involvement activities
consensus workshops
partnership brokering activities
advisory boards with decision-making roles
co-creation or co-production approaches

Dissemination activities should be marked separately to any engagement activities planned in your application. Dissemination involves making research results available to the people that can best utilise them and who they may affect.

Your key stakeholders may want to be part of the design of your dissemination activities. Dissemination activities should be audience dependent, and you should think about how and where your audience looks for knowledge and what would be the best way to communicate with them.

Wellcome’s support for engaged research is part of our wider work to foster inclusive research. You can read more about how to describe your research environment in funding applications on our website.

Engaged research resources and further reading

In 2024, Wellcome commissioned work to support researchers embedding engagement into their research and funding applications.

Engaged Research for Health: Tools for Engaged Research

This guide brings together over 40 tools and frameworks to support researchers at every stage of the research cycle. It includes:

Core principles of engaged research, including trust, equity, inclusivity and shared learning
Resources for engagement during design, implementation, dissemination and evaluation
Tailored guidance for working with young people, racially minoritised communities, disabled people and others
Practical materials like checklists, case studies and training suggestions

The guide is useful for both planning and strengthening engagement across different disciplines and contexts.

Download our guide

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