BU Research Blog

6 February 2026

A New Collaboration: Welcoming Dorset CREN as a co-host of the Community Voices Webinar

We’re excited to share that the Dorset Community Research Engagement Network (CREN) has joined The Centre for Seldom Heard Voices and the PIER Partnership as a co-host of our Community Voices Webinar Series! We know this partnership will strengthen our mission to amplify seldom heard voices and support community-led research.

CREN was developed as part of the fourth phase of the ‘I Am More Than…’ partnership, working alongside Community Action Network, The Lantern Trust, The HealthBus, and 11 Founding Members – grassroots charities and community groups committed to shaping inclusive research.

The goal of CREN is to link underserved communities with health and social care research, fostering equitable, two-way partnerships to improve local outcomes, and so working together, we can continue to engage with inspiring community groups, activists, and organisations working to promote inclusion and social justice across our region and beyond.

We have been delighted to hear from many of the founding members of CREN (grassroot charities and community groups committed to shaping inclusive research) in the 2025/2026 webinar series, and we are excited to hear from more in the coming months. We are looking forward to building even stronger connections between researchers and the communities they serve.

Our first webinar as a collaborator will be this Wednesday 11th February, 12-1pm, and another one of our members, Rosa Trout from Bournemouth Walk for Freedom is going to be joining us to share the wonderful work they do!

#WalkForFreedom an annual global event by A21 to raise awareness of human trafficking & exploitation. One of A21’s strategies in the fight against human trafficking is Reach. Reach focuses on educating and equipping the general public to understand, identify, and reduce the risk of human trafficking through education curriculum, prevention materials, and awareness campaigns.

Come along to find out more!

Find out more about CREN, here: https://can100.org/connecting-communities/i-am-more-than/

Scroll down on our page to watch some of the previous webinars: https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/centres-institutes/centre-seldom-heard-voices

Community Voices is a collaboration between BU PIER partnership, the Centre for Seldom Heard Voices and the Community Research Engagement Network (CREN) to provide a platform and a voice to local community activists.

12 January 2026

STEPS Club For Young People to present at the Community Voices Webinar Wednesday 14th January, 12-1pm

scorbinclarke

We are excited to share that on January 14th we will be welcoming Tom Lane, a Principal Youth Worker at the charity STEPS Club For Young People in Weymouth, to the Community Voices Webinar.

STEPS provides a range of activities, opportunities, projects, awards and support for young people aged 13-19, many of whom are disadvantaged, excluded or vulnerable.

They undertake a significant amount of work supporting young people with a wide range of issues and problems. These include education, training and employment, relationships, bullying, bereavement, drug and alcohol use, crime and anti-social behaviour, self-harm and suicidal ideation, abuse, sexual health and mental health.

We would love to see you there!

Community Voices is a collaboration between BU PIER partnership and Centre for Seldom Heard Voices to provide a platform and a voice to local community activists.

Join the meeting to find out more

Meeting ID: 324 372 201 287 1

Passcode: ug6rJ3c7

Contact Stevie for more information.

18 December 2025

20 Years of Inclusion: The latest PIER Annual Report is here!

scorbinclarke

We’re excited to share the Public Involvement in Education and Research (PIER) partnership’s latest Annual Report.

PIER turned 20 years old this year and its influence and impact has continued to grow. PIER is all about bringing lived experience into the heart of education and research, and it is central to everything they do. This year, strong collaborations with 66 community organisations has enabled work with groups who are often excluded from education and research, ensuring that those most affected by health and social inequalities help shape solutions, and this work is feeding into wider conversations about inclusion, inequality and change.

Looking ahead, PIER will continue to build genuine relationships, and creating flexible ways for people to get involved.

To find out all about PIER’s incredible achievements this year, read the full report here: https://issuu.com/bournemouthuniversity/docs/pier_annual_report_2024-25?fr=sODY0ZTgzNTU0MDQ

We would like to thank all of our BU colleagues for your continued support and collaboration, and encourage you to share this report widely!

Mel, Kate, Pete & Angela

3 July 2025

PramaLife to present at the at Community Voices Webinar Wednesday 9 July, 12-1pm

chemmings

We’re excited to welcome Sue Warr, Manager at PramaLife, to our July Community Voices Webinar. Sue will be sharing insights into the impactful work PramaLife is doing to empower independent lives for older people across Dorset.

For over 40 years, PramaLife has been providing care services throughout Dorset. Their vision is a world where no one is unfairly disadvantaged or excluded due to age or infirmity and where everyone can enjoy life as they age. Learn more about their mission at prama.org.uk.

Community voices is a collaboration between BU PIER partnership and Centre for Seldom Heard Voices to provide a platform and a voice to local community activists.

Please do join us for this webinar

Join the meeting now

Meeting ID: 358 121 945 336

Passcode: h6uD9oU3

8 January 2025

Meeting at BU to address maternal inequalities

NHS, Public engagement Edwin van Teijlingen

Today and yesterday (January 7-8) academics involved in MIHERC (Maternal and Infant Health Equity Research Centre), the successful interdisciplinary collaboration to address challenges in maternity care, met in Bournemouth. MIHERC is led by Sheffield Hallam University, along with Bournemouth University, South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub (SYDHH) and the Health Determinant Research Collaboration, Doncaster. In addition, a range of local and national partners are recognised. MIHERC is one of the nine groups of UK universities making up the new NIHR Challenge Maternity Disparities Consortium. This NIHR Consortium aims of tackling inequalities in maternity outcomes, focusing on inequalities before, during and after pregnancy.

Our second planning meeting highlighted our collective strengths including our expertise in community engagement and PPIE (Public & Patient Involvement & Engagement); intelligent digital solutions in maternity service delivery; research into under-served communities; and capacity building of both communities and maternity staff. The first planning meeting was held late last year at Sheffield Hallam University.

MIHERC is the only midwifery-led collaboration with a strong community engagement and digital inclusive research. MIHERC will work with various NHS Trusts as well as charities such as the Active Pregnancy Foundation, Active Dorset, and Maternal Mental Health Alliance.

2 July 2023

Reflections from visiting Erasmus+ students to Bournemouth University

international Edwin van Teijlingen

Late last week my colleague Dr. Pramod Regmi, Senior Lecturer in International Health, returned home from his Erasmus+ exchange to Nepal. He brought home for me a copy of the MMIHS (Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences) Souvenir 2023, this outliens key events at the institution of the past year. One of the write ups in the Souvenir is from the seven MMIHS M.Sc. students in Public Health who visited Bournemouth University in late 2022-early 2023 for three months. The students have since all completed their M.Sc. in Public Health at MMIHS. Their story highlights some of the British features of student life which were new to them. These included the support they received from our SUBU (=students’ union), or registering with the NHS, and the UNIBUS app, as well as cultural celebrations during their time in Dorset, such Halloween, Christmas and New Year. They rave about the module Public Involvement in Research and specifically thank Dr. Mel Hughes and BU’s PIER (Public Involvement in Education & Research) team. Their second module at BU focused on Systematic Reviewing, they particularly mention the guidance and support received from Prof. Vanora Hundley in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) and our Faculty of Health & Social Sciences librarian Mr. Caspian Dugdale.

Unfortunately, the Erasmus+ scheme has come to an end, but Bournemouth University has just been awarded funding for a serious number of Turing Scheme exchanges. The latter is for BU students to go aboard, and this funding supports study exchanges, work placements, voluntary traineeships and other international extra-curricular or curricular activities worldwide for a minimum of 28 days and maximum of 12 months.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH

23 November 2021

Join the next meeting of the Public Engagement with Research Network

Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement, Training Adam Morris

We’ll hear from Dr Mel Hughes and colleagues about PPI (Public and Patient Involvement in Research) and a new internal funding stream for public engagement.

Public engagement with research intersects with a number of other ways of communicating your research or involving people in it. At our next PER Network meeting we’ll look at one of those other ways, welcoming Dr Mel Hughes, Academic Lead for the BU PIER (Public Involvement in Education and Research) Partnership, Rachel Jury, PIER member, and Angela Warren, PIER coordinator who will provide a brief introduction to the what, why and how of public involvement in research, or PPI.

This is an opportunity to learn about different approaches to public involvement, the benefits to your research and the pitfalls to avoid. This session is co-designed and facilitated with a representative from the PIER partnership (Public Involvement in Education and Research), who has extensive experience of sharing their lived experience expertise in research studies. There will be opportunity at the end to ask your questions about public involvement.

We’ll also other news on public engagement from BU, including a new internal funding stream for public engagement and how you can apply.

The meeting will take place 1-2pm on Thursday 25 November, on Teams.

To join this meeting and find out about future ones, join our BU Public Engagement with Research Network. Check under ‘Meetings’ for upcoming sessions.

25 May 2021

VOICE@BU

Awarded & submitted bids, NHS, Post-award, Public engagement Louise Ward

VOICE is an exciting new digital platform for coordinating and supporting public involvement in research. BU has been awarded a licence of one year to trial and develop content on the platform.

We have used this opportunity to bring together the different teams working in BU to coordinate public involvement in research under the banner of VOICE@BU

VOICE@BU includes:

Mel Hughes, Pete Atkins and Angela Warren from the BU PIER Partnership
Helen Allen and Louise Ward from BUCRU and the NIHR Research Design Service South West (RDS SW)
Colleagues from the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences based research centres e.g. ADRC
Colleagues from BU Research Development & Support (RDS) Team (for coordinating public engagement)

On 11^th and 18^th May we ran two information events to explain VOICE@BU in more detail and provided a demonstration. One event for researchers, you can view the recording here and one event for members of the public and community organisations. Both events were well attended and both researchers and public contributors were keen to be involved.

Evidence shows that involving the public in the development of research at all stages of the research cycle ensures that research is relevant, participant friendly, ethically sound and improves outcomes for patients and service users. We are committed to increasing the range of voices that help shape and inform health and social care research at BU.

To summarise, researchers can:

Easily and quickly register for VOICE
Submit an opportunity request to involve members of the public in their research
Use the digital tools the platform offers to involve members of the public in research
Promote workshops/focus groups
Facilitate online discussions
Promote opportunities for the public to join steering groups
Online surveys & polls
Set timed challenges and encourage ideas from the community
Set up a closed group to communicate, share documents and support an established public involvement group
Communicate with VOICE members regarding specific opportunities
Access and share support and learning resources (From June) to help patient and public involvement and engagement activities

Please do register with VOICE and explore what is available and email us: voice@bournemouth.ac.uk to discuss how we can help get the public involved in your research and/or promote an event/opportunity to VOICE members.

5 November 2020

innovation, international, Knowledge Transfer, Publishing, Research Integritiy, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Today saw the publication of a new paper ‘Importance of involving patients and public in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and health research in South Asia’ co-authored by the BU Public Involvement in Education and Research (PIER) Partnership [1]. This paper is co-written with Dr. Bibha Simkhada, until recently Lecturer in Nursing in N4LTH Centre (Nursing for Long-Term Health) and now Senior Lecturer in Nursing at the University of Huddersfield, Dr. Aliya Naheed at icddr,b in Bangladesh, Angela Warren based at PIER, Dr. Sue Green (Principal Academic) and Prof. Edwin van Teilingen. The paper appears in the International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, which is published by Cambridge University Press.

The authors highlights that Patient and Public Involvement/Engagement (PPI/E) in public health research and Health Technology Assessment (HTA) in has significantly increased over past decade in countries such as the UK. PPI/E helps improve health research and hence benefits patients and service users. For example, organisations like BU’s PIER bring a unique patients and (potential) users’ perspective of these services, which enables FHSS to enhance the education the future workforce in health and social care as well as research in this area.

However, PPI/E is still very new concept in many LMICs (Low- and Middle-Income Countries). This paper considers the importance of PPI in public health research and HTA in the development and implementation of technology in the health sector in South Asia. Currently, in this region, health technology is frequently adopted from HICs without local research and HTA. It also discusses the importance of local co-creation of technology to reflect the needs of users within a culturally appropriate setting. It is important for LMIC-based researchers to understand the potential of PPI/E and how it can contribute to it to improve health care and research, especially perhaps in the era of COVID-19.

Reference:

Simkhada, B., van Teijlingen, E., Naheed, A., Warren A., Green, S. (2020) Importance of involving patients and public in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and health research in South Asia. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care [Online First 5 November, pp. 1-3].

12 July 2017

Join us for our PPI network meeting

Public engagement mhughes

BU PIER partnership (Public Involvement in Education and Research) have established a network for people across the University and in practice who are involved in coordinating or who are interested in public and patient involvement (PPI) in resesarch. Our next (and 4th) meeting is on Thursday 20th July 10.00 – 11.30 at the Executive Business Centre (EB304). We will be joined by Clare Ballinger (strategic lead for the Wessex Public Involvement Network) and Anya de Longh (service user who has been involved in developnig PPI initiatives) who will be presenting on their work and shring ideas for best practice. If you would like to join us, please send Mel Hughes mhughes@bournemouth.ac.uk a quick email so we know numbers.

Tagged / PIER

A New Collaboration: Welcoming Dorset CREN as a co-host of the Community Voices Webinar

20 Years of Inclusion: The latest PIER Annual Report is here!

We’re excited to share the Public Involvement in Education and Research (PIER) partnership’s latest Annual Report.

PramaLife to present at the at Community Voices Webinar Wednesday 9 July, 12-1pm

We’re excited to welcome Sue Warr, Manager at PramaLife, to our July Community Voices Webinar. Sue will be sharing insights into the impactful work PramaLife is doing to empower independent lives for older people across Dorset.

Reflections from visiting Erasmus+ students to Bournemouth University

Join the next meeting of the Public Engagement with Research Network

Join us for our PPI network meeting

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Tagged / PIER

We’re excited to share the Public Involvement in Education and Research (PIER) partnership’s latest Annual Report.

We’re excited to welcome Sue Warr, Manager at PramaLife, to our July Community Voices Webinar. Sue will be sharing insights into the impactful work PramaLife is doing to empower independent lives for older people across Dorset.

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