4: Co-producing and funding research in the context of a global health pandemic
The past decade or so has seen a greater push for more inclusive practice in the way research is developed and co-produced with patients and the public. The drivers have been a complex mixture of democratic right, increasing accountability, ensuring that research is meeting the needs of the people and communities it is trying to support, and the perceived positive impact on the quality of the research. Indeed there was an assertion that patient and public involvement and co-production (Hickey et al, 2018) were increasingly well established in the research process, from commissioning, through to designing, undertaking, and delivering research (INVOLVE, 2012) – although we should acknowledge that the practical implementation of co-production was limited even before COVID-19 (Green et al, 2019). And then came COVID-19.
The impact of COVID-19 on co-production, it is asserted here, can be characterised as an initial sidelining of patient and public involvement in research and the highlighting of existing health inequalities. This was followed by a reassertion of the importance of patient and public involvement. Included in this narrative are themes of the resilience of patient and public involvement and co-production and the embracing of digital responses to patient and public involvement and co-production. Indeed, we note here that, although digital exclusion is a genuine challenge, digital techniques also have the potential to increase reach and accessibility and assert that the ‘new normal’ will involve more digital working than hitherto, creating a new hybrid approach to public involvement in research.
In responding to COVID-19, governments and major funders of health and social care research swung into action, pausing and postponing some research and policy activity, and changing well-established processes and procedures as they prioritised responding to COVID-19 as quickly as possible.
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