Things that make you go ‘hmmm?’

Five telltale signs that consumer engagement is lacking in your MRFF application

The lack of meaningful involvement of community and/or consumers in an MRFF application is immediately noticeable to assessors. Here’s an example of what they say:

Why is there such a focus on whether consumers are involved or not?

The guidelines for each MRFF opportunity read:

 

‘Effective consumer involvement is important for building the quality, outcomes, relevance, impact and international competitiveness of MRFF-funded research…Researchers are actively encouraged to involve consumers at all stages of their proposed research, including its prioritisation, design, conduct, the dissemination of results (including to the community), and its translation and evaluation.’

 

The value MRFF places on meaningful consumer engagement in research is reflected in various elements of the assessment criteria for Project Impact and Project Methodology, and in the mandatory for many (but not all) 2-page Consumer Involvement Statement.

 

Despite this emphasis, not all applications appropriately demonstrate consumer engagement in their proposal, leaving them at risk of lower assessment scores. And more importantly, risking the potential impact of their project; impact that may have been substantially leveraged if consumers had been meaningfully involved.

 

Here’s our list of 5 telltale signs that something is amiss with the consumer engagement aspect of your MRFF application. 

#1. There’s plenty of engagement with other types of stakeholders, but none has been with consumers.

Let’s begin with considering how MRFF defines ‘consumers’: ‘A person with lived experience as a patient, client, potential patient, user of health services, and/or provider of support as a carer, family or community member.’

 

It’s important to highlight that ‘consumers’ doesn’t include other end users, such as clinicians, allied health professionals, or other service or support providers.

 

This distinction is often missed, and while it’s true that the extent of consumer engagement or the reason for their engagement should be appropriate to the project and consumer cohort, MRFF’s guidance makes it clear that where consumers can be involved, they should be.

 

So, even if your proposal demonstrates an impressively diverse, multidisciplinary group of collaborators, partners, CIs and AIs, if consumers are absent from the engagement activities, reviewers may likely question why.

#2. There’s been engagement with consumers, but this occurred over a short period of time

Building long-term trusted relationships with consumers and communities strengthens the value of health research and enhances the potential impact from the research. However, to ensure research addresses consumer-determined needs, values and preferences, and is geographically and culturally appropriate, long-term discussions are key. It takes time to build rapport and establish ongoing, meaningful dialogue. Apart from the initial time investment in establishing long-term trusted relationships with consumers, the amount of time necessary to engage them meaningfully in co-conceptualising the research focus, prioritising issues to be addressed, and co-designing the project can be substantial.

 

In contrast, where proposals indicate that the co-design phase has occurred, for instance over a week or two, and/or with just one consumer, reviewers may likely question the value and quality of the relationship with consumers.

 

A further point to consider is that while you could demonstrate  how results from targeted consumer surveys or results from focus groups underpinned your project, this feedback doesn’t mean that meaningful roles before and during conceptualisation were held by consumers as researchers on the project.

#3. ‘Consumers are engaged at every stage of our research’: but are they?

Let’s first consider what the stages of the research are:

Applications that demonstrate meaningful consumer engagement across all stages of research are the ideal scenario for any MRFF application.

For instance, a robust exemplar of meaningful consumer engagement across stages could include: long-term discussions with consumers that included prioritising the issues concerning them; authentic co-conceptualisation and co-planning with consumers; and mutually agreed leadership roles that see consumers driving elements of the project, including the conduct of the research, governance, evaluation and co-determined dissemination strategies.

 

If you argue that all stages of your research engage consumers, then reviewers should be able to read about how consumers:

• will leverage, maximise and sustain the potential impact (Project Impact)

• hold roles in the conduct of the research, and be engaged in specific activities within specific aims (Project Methodology)

• contribute to the team capacity and provide complementary expertise (Capacity, Capability and Resources [Team statement])

• will be safely, sensitively and appropriately supported by non-consumers in the research team (Capacity, Capability and Resources [Team statement])

• hold a CI role, if relevant (Capacity, Capability and Resources [Individual CI statement])

• will be engaged in governance and risk management, and potentially inform an argument about benefit and risk, e.g., identifying where novel research involves a considered risk, determined by consumers as risk at an acceptable level given the potential social, economic, or community outcomes. (Overall Value and Risk)

• will leverage your capacity to address your chosen MRFF Measures of Success (Measures of Success statement)

  
  

It is your challenge to ensure that consumer engagement is embedded across all elements of your application, and there are no inconsistencies in your argument.

#4. Consumers hold meaningful leadership roles: or do they?

Consumers should be empowered to engage in research, for instance by being supported to hold meaningful leadership roles in the project.

Indeed, leadership roles for consumers are expected where your research is focused on a Priority Population, defined by MRFF as ‘Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people, older people experiencing diseases of ageing, people with rare or currently untreatable diseases/conditions, people in remote/rural communities, people with a disability, individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, LGBTIQ+ people, youth.’

Best-evidence co-design should bring all end-users together to design new services, tools, interventions, technologies and/or policies. Consumers shouldn’t be absent from these processes. After all, who best would know what is likely to work, be acceptable, and address their needs and challenges, than the consumer beneficiaries themselves? Best-evidence co-design builds confidence, consensus, and ownership. It produces community-led services and policies. But there are challenges, and these are largely about the imbalance of power.

The responsibility for ensuring leadership roles falls with the entire research team. When focused on the populations to benefit, it seems obvious that greater impact can be achieved when embracing consumer-driven co-design and co-development; having consumers lead elements of the project so that thorough understandings of local contexts and consumer-defined barriers and enablers are ensured; and conducting culturally and situationally appropriate and sensitive research.

#5. Our final thought? It’s tense.

Past vs current vs future tense, to be precise.

 

Consider this sentence: ‘We will engage consumers to co-design our project’.

 

There are two problems with this sentence: 1) the future tense wording highlights that consumers haven’t yet been engaged, and 2) how can you be presenting a proposal if your project is yet to be co-designed?

Make sure you read and re-read your proposal to ensure your tense is correct throughout. This will help avoid any ambiguity for researchers in terms of what you have, and haven’t, done.

---

If you’d like to read more of our blogs about consumer engagement, relevant to MRFF applications, try these:

Boosting rural, regional and remote health in MRFF applications: how to achieve real-world impact

How MRFF applications are assessed: knowing what ‘works well’

MRFF applications: have you embedded genuine First Nations leadership?