Public and Community Engagement Conference 2025

Join us for the Public and Community Engagement Conference 2025 on Friday 26th September, bringing together staff engaged in public and community engagement to share success stories, identify gaps in support, explore improvements, and highlight available training opportunities.

Agenda:

9:00 – 9:30 | Arrival & Refreshments

9:30 – 9:35 | Welcome & RIS Overview – Claire Hutchinson

9:35 – 9:40 | Opening Remarks

9:40 – 9:45 | CHASE Overview – Prof Monique Lhussier

9:45 – 10:15 | Roundtable Introduction & Expectations – Dr Will McGovern

10:15 – 10:30 | Break

10:30 – 11:30 | Research Culture Island Activity – Facilitated by Claire Hutchinson

11:30 – 11:45 | Break & Table Exploration

11:45 – 11:50 | Public Partnership Training Programme – Vicki Harris

11:50 – 11:55 | RIS Internal Training Offer – Claire Hutchinson

12:00 – 12:20 | Co-Producing Community Engagement – Greta Brunskill & Beth Reeves

12:20 – 12:35 | Open Mic: Reflections & Ways Forward – Facilitated by Dr Will McGovern

Audience: 

Northumbria University academics and professional services staff involved or interested in public and community engagement.

Additional Information:

Vicki Harris - Head of Partnerships - Newcastle Health Research Partnership (NHRP)

Opportunity: Public Partnership Training Programme

The Public Partnership Training Programme is a joint initiative between Newcastle Health Research Partnership (NHRP) and Creating Connections Vicki Harris, Head of Partnerships at Newcastle Health Research Partnership, will update on the free training programme, available for research staff, PPIE professionals, public contributors, health professionals and VCSE staff based in the North East and North Cumbria. The training is designed to support inclusive and collaborative research with sessions tailored to the stages of the research cycle, as well as research inclusion sessions. 

Greta Brunskill  (NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Diagnostic & Technology Evaluation) and Beth Reeves (Voluntary Organisations’ Network North East (VONNE)) 

Co-producing a Regional Approach to Community Engagement in Health and Care Research

The emphasis on involving the public and communities as active partners in health and care research is growing. Researchers often turn to organisations in the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector to engage diverse groups in their research activity. Our presentation will highlight some of the key challenges and considerations for these VCSE and research connections based on core principles of building meaningful, reciprocal and sustainable partnerships. Recent innovative work in the North East & North Cumbria to co-produce new, practical tools to support VCSE and research partners to work together will be shared to illustrate how these principles can look in practice. Following our presentation there will be opportunity for Q&A around barriers and facilitators to partnership working with communities and VCSE organisations.