In October 2018, we organised and facilitated a workshop to bring together lay members from across the biomedical research sector. This included different research committees, patient and health service user groups, patient involvement panels, and animal welfare and ethical review boards. The aim was to provide a safe space for lay members to meet as a group. We wanted to enable people to discuss the issues that concerned them, providing an opportunity to build dialogue across different perspectives, with a particular focus on the opportunities and challenges of discussing and shaping biomedical research. We wanted to offer participants an opportunity to set an agenda (outside of our existing research) for how such challenges might be addressed. The workshop was funded by the Wellcome Trust and facilitated by the independent facilitator Dr Jo Welsman.
This report provides a record of these discussions, and highlights the different viewpoints and experiences of involvement that participants at the workshop had.