People's Vision for R&D

The Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) commissioned NatCen’s Centre for Deliberation (CfD) ran a public dialogue that explored attitudes towards public involvement in research and development (R&D).

About the study

CaSE is the UK’s leading independent advocate for science and engineering, representing over 110 scientific organisations including businesses, universities, professional bodies, and research charities as well as individual scientists and engineers. Its Discovery Decade programme seeks to support a behaviour change in how organisations and individuals advocate for R&D, with the aim of making R&D matter to more people.

To inform this programme, CaSE commissioned the CfD to run a public dialogue that explored attitudes towards public involvement in R&D. The public can be involved in R&D in a variety of ways. Some of this concerns decision-making about R&D, like helping the NHS make decisions about health research applications. Other forms of involvement are about being involved in R&D itself, such as monitoring your local air quality (or taking part in a research project like this dialogue itself).

To explore attitudes towards public involvement, we brought together 33 members of the public from across the UK in May 2024 across four online workshops (three weekday evenings and one Saturday daytime). The dialogue was delivered in collaboration with the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE), which works to build an inclusive higher education sector where communities can contribute to, and benefit from, knowledge, teaching and research.

The dialogue focused on understanding people’s emotional connection to R&D, as well as what they value about involvement in it. It also explored what they see as the motivators and barriers to getting involved in R&D, and what principles they thought should guide the R&D sector in involving the public.

Findings

During the dialogue, participants began by feeling largely ambivalent towards R&D and the public’s involvement in it, with some expressing excitement and others some fear or distrust. By the end of the dialogue, participants were largely positive about the same topics, with almost no ambivalence and a reduction in fear or distrust. This evolution appears to have resulted from two things: the positive experience of involvement in this dialogue process and learning more about the range of ways the public are involved in R&D already. 

These two elements in turn shaped the ‘People’s Principles for Involvement in R&D’; developed by participants to guide the R&D sector. In particular, the People’s Principles highlight the importance of increasing awareness of involvement in R&D through communicating the benefits for participants, researchers, and wider society. Underpinning these benefits was the idea that public involvement should use the public’s expertise to add value for society. The People’s Principles show what would increase connection with, and trust in, R&D, as well as reduce participants’ concerns that involvement could be tokenistic.

Methodology

A public dialogue brings together members of the public with subject specialists to learn about a complex topic over an extended period, before using that new understanding to deliberate and make decisions.