Warwick Diabetes Research and Education User Group
Are you developing a new funding proposal?
Please be aware that the Group requires funding in order to function; this funding comes from the research funders. If you are developing a funding proposal for a diabetes-related study, please cost in £75 for every month of the life of the study to support the Group’s activities.
The administrative and research time is funded by Warwick Medical School through the salaries of the university members involved.
We are fortunate to have the support of the Warwick Diabetes Research and Education User Group here at Warwick Medical School – their function is recognised nationally.
Benefits of involving service users in research
For the ethics committee research funder, which could be the NHS, the DoH, a charity such as Diabetes UK or a Research Council like the Medical Research Council (MRC), involvement of service users in all stages of the research ensures that the types of research that are being funded are genuinely important to ordinary people in the UK. For people living with, or caring for, someone with diabetes, this means thinking about the most important unanswered diabetes questions for them.
For the researcher, involving service users in the research can mean;
- The research questions are important to people living with diabetes and therefore are more likely to succeed when involving people with diabetes as participants in the studies.
- The research plan is feasible. Are the right places being approached to find the people needed to take part in the studies, e.g. through GPs in person or through a letter from the GP or through a newspaper advertisement. People who live with diabetes can help the researcher to work out the best ways of interesting other people with diabetes in their research study.
- Are the right kinds of data being collected? For people with diabetes, measuring whether an intervention makes people feel more or less fed up about their diabetes might be more important than knowing whether their blood sugar levels remain stable. Working with service users in deciding what we should be measuring makes sure we have findings that people can use and relate to.
- The findings from the research reach a wider audience. Researchers are often accused of not sharing their knowledge in a language and in ways in which people and health care professionals can use it. Service user involvement can help research findings get out into the real world through their networks with other people with diabetes or in consultations with their own GP or nurse.
- Involving service users in research planning is costly and time consuming for the universities. However, it keeps the research feet on the ground, it is a check point for some ideas, it raises issues not considered and enables more to be achieved out of funded research.
What can the Group advise me on?
Anything from an idea for a research study, who to recruit and how, ethical issues, the feasibility of data collection, questionnaire content, information sheets and consent forms, interview topics, interpreting the findings, making recommendations and disseminating the findings. If you are unsure, please contact one of us for advice.
The Group is always pleased to hear about the progress and findings of studies.
