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 – Asoc Prof 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 – Emma Watson

11:55 – 12:15 | Co-producing a Regional Approach to Community Engagement in Health and Care Research - Greta Brunskill and Beth Reeves

12:15 – 12:30 | Three experts in PCE from each of the new faculties will share some success stories

12:30 – 12:50 | Open Mic: Reflections & Ways Forward – Facilitated by Asoc Prof Will McGovern

For more information about public engagement support you can access, contact claire.s.hutchinson@northumbria.ac.uk

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. 

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2025 Public Partnership Training Programme 

Our free Training Programme features a combination of online and in-person sessions. For a full breakdown, please see the attached schedule.

Registration is now open for sessions taking place from September to November 2025 through our platform. 

Note that sessions scheduled for January to March 2026 will be announced in October 2025, while those from April to June 2026 will be announced in February 2026.

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.