INVOLVE’s national conferences bring together people with a common interest in public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research. This includes members of the public, service users, researchers, research commissioners and representatives of voluntary sector organisations. The aim is to encourage the sharing of knowledge and learning.

The focus of this 7th Biennial Conference is on innovation and impact including:

• the ways in which the public are involved in research - new approaches
• understanding the impact of public involvement - how it makes a difference
• providing a platform for research on public involvement in research

The conference takes place over two days starting at 1.00pm on Tuesday 16th November and finishing at 4.00pm on Wednesday 17th November 2010.

The programme will offer a selection of over 100 presentations ranging from papers, poster talks, workshops and discussions as well as the use of DVDs, performances and posters. There will also be a soapbox for people to raise issues that they are passionate about.

• practice – examples of public involvement and partnership working between service users, researchers, commissioners and practitioners
• innovation - new approaches, development of ideas and lessons learnt
• impact – researching, evaluating and reporting the impact of involvement in research
• inclusion - involving communities and specific groups of people in research
• user led research - projects highlighting what is being done

• support and learning
• how to measure and report the impact of involvement
• international perspectives
• policy and service changes and how they link with public involvement in research
• future directions

We are returning this year to the East Midlands Conference Centre, a modern and accessible venue near to Nottingham city centre and major road, rail, bus and air links. There are a large number of car parking spaces - including designated disabled parking bays - available at the conference centre.

This is a non-profit making conference that is financially supported by the Department of Health. As part of promoting and supporting public involvement at the conference INVOLVE has a small limited fund available to help people with the cost of fees, care assistance, travel, accommodation and any other reasonable expenses. It is for people from local, voluntary and community organisations, self help groups and individual members of the public invited to present or wanting to attend the conference and who do not have funding from other sources.

We will need to know why you need help with costs, what you would like it to cover and how much you think it will cost. This is so that we can calculate how much of the fund remains available at any given time.

Click here for more details about the funding policy and who can apply.