Evaluation of a Seed Award scheme to promote the involvement of global health researchers in public and community engagement: approaches, challenges and lessons learned

Abstract

Background Public and community engagement (PCE) in health research is becoming more common and many research organizations are committed to fostering PCE to strengthen their research culture. However, barriers that may make researchers hesitate to undertake PCE activities may be heightened in Global South research settings. To address these challenges, we set up a PCE Seed Award scheme at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) across four research sites in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi -Vietnam, Indonesia, and Nepal to enable researchers to incorporate public engagement activities in their research. Methods The Seed Award scheme followed three steps: 1. A call for applications and funding decisions: Researchers were invited to submit grant applications twice per year. Applications were reviewed and funding decisions made by a committee including external reviewers. 2. Supporting and monitoring: Successful awardees were supported to further develop their proposals, strengthen engagement capacity and to plan evaluation. 3. Reporting and evaluation: Awardees were asked to conduct evaluation throughout the activities and to submit an end-of-project report. The scheme itself was evaluated using mixed methods. Results Over a six-year period from 2016-2022, 41 small grants were awarded. The PCE team supporting the scheme delivered 19 training sessions to help strengthen awardees PCE capacity. Conclusions We conclude that the scheme has made a profound impact in encouraging researchers at the OUCRU research units to lead and be involved with PCE activities. During this period, many more researchers, of all grades, were active in engagement projects. The scheme was improved by adding mentoring and training, and one-on-one mentoring helped attract more applicants. In this paper, we describe the process of development and implementation of this award programme, which aims to support and promote researcher-led public engagement and reflect on the challenges and lessons learned.