Valuing student voices: a qualitative study on fair recognition and compensation practices for student partners in mental health research

Abstract

Background

Post-secondary student mental health research increasingly calls for students to be engaged as equal partners, yet there is a lack of guidance on how to recognize and compensate their contributions. This study examines how student partners’ contributions to post-secondary student mental health research should be recognized through qualitative insights from diverse interest groups.

Methods

We conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 13 participants representing diverse interest groups: faculty researchers, student researchers, students with lived experience, and staff in post-secondary institutions. The data was analyzed using conventional content analysis.

Results

Five themes were identified: (1) lived experience as valued expertise; (2) principles of fair and equitable recognition; (3) current compensation practices; (4) systemic barriers to monetary compensation; and (5) structural solutions and advocacy. Together, themes suggest that lived experience was seen as integral to research design, implementation, and knowledge mobilization. Participants emphasized proportionality, transparency, shared decision-making, and non-coercion as guiding principles. Compensating student partners is not the norm, in part, because there are barriers such as institutional polices and limited funding that are at odds with how we should compensate students. Structural solutions and advocacy to normalize compensation include creating compensation guidelines, reporting compensation practices, and working with grant agencies.

Conclusion

Overall, we identified compensation considerations for student partners. Based on our qualitative insights, we recommend underlying principles that should govern recognition practices in this unique research context and potential solutions to normalize the recognition of students’ lived experiences.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-026-00993-3.

Plain language summary

Why was this study done?

Post-secondary student mental health research increasingly involves students as partners on research teams, meaning students contribute to shaping research questions and methods, and sharing findings, rather than only taking part as study participants. However, there is little guidance on how to fairly recognize and compensate student partners for their contributions, including the lived experience they bring (i.e., their own experiences of being a student). This study explored how student partners’ contributions should be recognized, based on insights from people involved in this type of work.

What did we do?

We interviewed 13 people involved in post-secondary student mental health research, including students, faculty, and staff. We looked across interviews to find repeated ideas and grouped them into key themes.

What did we find?

Participants described students’ lived experience as valuable expertise that can strengthen research by improving study design, how research is conducted, and how results are shared. They emphasized the importance of clear expectations, shared decision-making, and making sure recognition matches contribution while ensuring students do not feel pressured to be involved. Participants noted that compensating student partners for their contributions is not common, in part because institutional rules and limited funding create barriers. Suggested ways forward included developing compensation guidelines, reporting compensation practices, and working with funding agencies to better support student partners.

What does this mean?

Our findings provide practical recommendations to help make fair recognition of student partners’ lived experiences more common in post-secondary student mental health research.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-026-00993-3.

Background

Student mental health has become a pressing concern in post-secondary institutions. Rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges among post-secondary students have risen significantly in recent years, with implications for academic performance, student retention, and overall well-being [1–3]. In response, there is growing interest in developing student-centred policies and evidence-based practices that can address these challenges effectively [4]. Central to this effort is meaningful student engagement, where post-secondary students contribute as equal partners in research whereby they are actively involved in the co-design of research questions, the development of methodologies, and the planning and implementation of knowledge translation activities that directly affect their communities [5]. Importantly, this role extends beyond students as participants to focus on roles that allow students to shape how research happens.

This approach mirrors a broader shift within health research towards active involvement of individuals with lived experience, commonly referred to as patient engagement. Patient and public engagement has gained momentum as a means to improve the quality, relevance, and impact of clinical research [6, 7]. For instance, the vision of Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research is to have patients as “active partners in health research that will lead to improved health outcomes and an enhanced health care system [8].” Engaging the public in clinical research has been shown to reduce power imbalances [9–12], and improve the value and efficacy of research [13–15]. This growing emphasis on involving individuals with lived experience echo wider service user involvement and co-production work, where involvement has been linked to empowerment, service improvement, and more equitable decision-making, yet involvement processes may still reproduce tokenism and persistent structural inequalities [16–19].

Although significant progress has been made in engaging patients as active partners, further work is needed to promote student engagement in post-secondary student mental health research [4]. Post-secondary students represent a highly diverse population, encompassing a wide range of educational levels, cultural backgrounds, and life circumstances, including international students, mature learners, and those living away from home for the first time [20–22]. This diversity intersects with unique challenges such as adjusting to new academic and social environments, managing financial pressures, navigating immigration or residency requirements, and balancing multiple academic and personal responsibilities [23, 24]. Together, these factors shape students’ unique lived experiences, which are central to understanding and addressing post-secondary student mental health. Yet, student involvement in research is often framed through the “student-as-apprentice” model, where participation is viewed primarily as a means for self-development and skill-building rather than as a form of equal partnership [25, 26]. In these models, involvement is commonly initiated by faculty and focused on training students in research methods, with participation often shaped by mentorship and professional development opportunities [27]. While valuable for learning, this approach reinforces power imbalances within academic settings and can limit students’ ability to shape research priorities, particularly in student mental health, and to be recognised as equal research partners.

When students get the opportunity to be authentically engaged as student research partners, they contribute substantial amounts of time and irreplaceable lived experience expertise to improve the quality of student mental health research. Here, student lived experience refers broadly to experiential knowledge arising from navigating post-secondary education, including academic, social, financial, cultural, and institutional contexts, as well as lived experience of mental health challenges and engagement with campus mental health services and supports. A critical component of advocating for genuine student engagement is to develop, report, and promote fair recognition and compensation practices for student partners [28]. Appropriate recognition—whether in the form of financial compensation, authorship, professional development opportunities, or other non-monetary compensation—signals that student partners’ expertise is valued alongside other forms of academic or professional expertise. As we work to transform the role of students in student mental health research from being passive participants to experts and collaborators through meaningful engagement, we must, in parallel, develop a guideline that appropriately recognizes the value of students’ critical research contributions. For patient-oriented or clinical research, guidelines and frameworks have been developed to support equitable compensation for partners with lived experience [29, 30]. Yet, despite the growing emphasis on student engagement in mental health research, no such policy or framework exists to guide equitable recognition and compensation for student partners.

To address this gap, the present study investigates how student partners’ contributions to post-secondary student mental health research should be recognized. Using a qualitative approach, we aim to identify compensation considerations for student partners within the context of student mental health research by gaining qualitative insights from diverse interest groups, including post-secondary faculty, students, and staff. Such perspectives can help identify practical considerations of compensation and the underlying principles that should govern recognition practices in this unique research context.

Methods

Study design

This qualitative study employed a naturalistic approach to explore interest groups’ perspectives on recognition and compensation practices for student partners in mental health research [31, 32]. A naturalistic approach allows the researchers to interpret meaning from participants’ own words within the context of their lived experiences. The study was approved by the University of Toronto’s Research Ethics Board (REB #00046842).

Sample

Purposive sampling was used to recruit members of diverse interest groups in post-secondary student mental health research, including faculty researchers, student researchers, students with lived experience, and staff in post-secondary institutions [33]. Recruitment was conducted through the networks of the Inlight Student Mental Health Research Initiative (smhr.utoronto.ca), at research conferences and meetings, and via word-of-mouth.

To be eligible, participants had to be able to speak and understand English, 18 years of age or older, and identify as a member of an interest group in post-secondary student mental health research. Eligible interest groups were defined as individuals or groups who can influence, or be affected by, student mental health research, including those within and outside educational institutions. Recruitment continued until no further insights were identified, resulting in a final sample of 13 participants. Further details on how informational redundancy was assessed are described in the data analysis section below.

Data collection

Interested participants received a read-only version of the consent form via email, which outlined the study purpose, their rights as participants, the voluntary nature of participation, and the confidentiality of their data. Participants who agreed to take part scheduled an online interview conducted via Zoom. Prior to the interview, participants provided electronic written informed consent and completed a brief demographic questionnaire via REDCap. Semi-structured interviews were conducted by SP in English, lasted between 30 and 60 min, and were recorded via Zoom. The interview guide (Additional File 1) was designed by SP, in consultation with EM, KC, and an advisory of students with lived experience (see Patient and Public Involvement). Recordings were initially transcribed using Zoom’s automated transcription feature. The interviewer then reviewed the entire recording, corrected any errors in the transcript, and removed identifying information. All participants were compensated CAD $25 electronic gift card for their time.

Data analysis

Data analysis followed a conventional approach to content analysis [31, 32] and was conducted in NVivo 14 by SP and PT. The conventional approach is one of the three main approaches to content analysis that allows researchers to gain participants’ unique perspectives with regard to compensation of student partners in post-secondary student mental health research without imposing preconceived categories.

Analysis proceeded inductively and iteratively alongside participant recruitment. Following each interview, SP reviewed transcripts to identify emerging concepts related to the research question and to monitor whether new compensation considerations, perspectives, or principles of recognition were emerging. This preliminary analytic process informed both the assessment of informational redundancy and iterative refinement of the developing codebook throughout recruitment.

Following Ando et al. [34], who emphasize that saturation should be defined in relation to a study’s level of conceptual analysis and documented through the analytic process, informational redundancy was assessed across the dataset at the level of higher-order conceptual categories related to compensation considerations and principles of recognition, rather than at the level of interest group-specific experiences. Recruitment concluded once successive interviews no longer contributed substantively new higher-order conceptual categories or required substantial revisions to the developing codebook, resulting in a final sample of 13 participants.

After data collection was completed, SP led the formal content analysis process. Transcripts were repeatedly read by both SP and PT to achieve familiarization with the dataset and develop an overall understanding of participants’ accounts. Meaning units relevant to the research question were identified, condensed while preserving their core meaning, and labelled with descriptive codes. Codes were then grouped into preliminary categories. Through an iterative and reflective analytic process, categories were further abstracted into higher-order themes that captured underlying patterns related to compensation considerations and recognition practices for student partners in post-secondary student mental health research [32].

An initial subset of transcripts was independently reviewed and coded by SP and PT to support development and refinement of the coding framework. Through discussion and comparison of interpretations, a shared understanding of descriptive codes, categories, and higher-order themes was established, after which the refined codebook was systematically applied across the full dataset. Ambiguous or overlapping categories and themes were discussed throughout analysis and refined iteratively as coding progressed.

Quality and rigour

SP and PT independently familiarized themselves with the transcripts and met regularly throughout analysis to compare interpretations, discuss coding decisions, and refine the evolving codebook. SP initially developed descriptive codes from condensed meaning units, after which SP and PT collaboratively reviewed and refined codes, categories, and emerging themes from a subset of transcripts through discussion, resulting in an initial coding framework. This initial codebook was then independently applied by both coders to a second subset of transcripts. Coding discrepancies, including differences in the interpretation of themes and category boundaries, were reviewed collaboratively and resolved through discussion, resulting in further refinement of the codebook. Once a stable coding framework and higher-order themes had been established, both coders independently applied the final codebook to all transcripts, including those used during the iterative development and refinement of the coding framework. Although minor refinements were made to the final codebook as the coding progressed, they did not alter the coding framework. Inter-rater reliability was assessed using Cohen’s kappa coefficient to support consistency in the application of the coding framework within this iterative and interpretive analytic process. The average Cohen’s kappa coefficient across the entire dataset coded using the final codebook was 0.76, indicating substantial agreement between coders. During the coding process, SP and PT drew on their own lived experience as students involved in postsecondary mental health research. Regular consultation meetings with LE provided additional perspectives and supported reflexive discussion throughout the analytic process.

Patient and public involvement

The study was led by SP, an undergraduate member of Inlight’s 2024 Student Advisory Committee. The Inlight Student Advisory Committee is a standing body of approximately eight to twelve undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at the University of Toronto [35]. The Student Advisory Committee includes diverse perspectives from students across different faculties, academic levels, and lived experience, and provides student-led input into activities facilitated by Inlight Student Mental Health Research Initiative. SP received compensation through an Inlight Studentship Award ($6,000 CAD) and is the first author of the manuscript. The co-author (PT), also an undergraduate student partner, was compensated at the standard research assistantship rate of CAD $25/hr. In addition, members of the Inlight Student Advisory Committee were involved in the study’s conceptualization and the refinement of the interview guide and were consulted throughout the research process. The advisory committee involved in this study is acknowledged in this manuscript for their contributions. We are grateful to participants for their insights into compensating student partners. This study was reported in accordance with the Guidance for Reporting Involvement of Patients and the Public–2 (GRIPP2) short-form (Additional File 2) [36].

Results

Participant characteristics

In total, 13 participants provided consent to participate in the study. The participants are members of three different interest groups: faculty (n = 6), post-secondary students (n = 6), and one staff. Ten participants identified as female and three as male. Among the students, one was an undergraduate student, two were master’s students, and three were PhD students. Most participants reported Canada (n = 7) as their country of origin, with additional representation from Australia, the United States, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom, and Sri Lanka; one participant did not report their country of origin. At the time of the study, participants were affiliated with post-secondary institutions located in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Participants represented a range of professional roles, including research coordination and engagement and academic roles within post-secondary institutions, as well as diverse disciplinary backgrounds, including clinical psychology, nursing, sociology, and computer science.

Themes

Five themes were identified in the qualitative analysis: (1) lived experience as valued expertise; (2) principles of fair and equitable recognition; (3) current compensation practices; (4) systemic barriers to monetary compensation; and (5) structural solutions and advocacy. Lived experience was seen as integral to research design, implementation, and knowledge mobilization, and thus, there was a consensus that students’ lived experience is a compensable expertise (Theme 1). Participants emphasized proportionality, transparency, shared decision-making, and non-coercion as guiding principles (Theme 2). Despite the value that student partners bring to research, compensating student partners is not the norm (Theme 3). In part, this is because there are barriers such as institutional polices and limited funding that are at odds with how we should compensate students (Theme 4). To overcome systemic barriers, structural solutions and advocacy to normalize compensation have been proposed, which include creating compensation guidelines, reporting compensation practices, and working with grant agencies, policymakers, and university administrative staff (Theme 5).

Theme 1: Lived experience as valued expertise

Across all interviews, participants consistently described students’ lived experience as an irreplaceable and invaluable form of expertise that should be integrated into every stage of the research process, from project design to knowledge mobilization. Importantly, being a student partner, such as being a student advisor in post-secondary mental health research initiatives, is not only invaluable to the team but would also often “turn out to be more responsibility than what [the student] has done in the past” (Participant 7, Student).

For many, this experiential knowledge was seen as a critical factor in ensuring research outputs are relevant and actionable to post-secondary students. As one student participant reflected, involving students with lived experience “is so much richer and more relevant, and leads to knowledge that can be translated into actual on-the-ground tools” (Participant 13, Student).

Several faculty and academic staff echoed this view, noting that the absence of student involvement has contributed to a disconnect between research and tangible change in campus mental health policy. One faculty member with a clinical psychology background explained that “students really haven’t been involved in the specific questions that are being asked,” which is “probably one reason why a lot of the research hasn’t translated into actual improvements or changes in institutional policy” (Participant 5, Faculty).

Participants also discussed how embedding lived experience in research can mitigate bias and challenge entrenched assumptions. Meaningful involvement, they argued, requires more than consultation. It demands structures that grant students real decision-making authority.

If you have students as partners and they have decision-making power ideally, they can disagree and they can, you know, correct researchers when they’re wrong (…) or [students] can ask for things to be put in that maybe researchers wouldn’t have thought. (Participant 1, Faculty).

For campus-based mental health research services, lived experience was seen as a source of practical insight into the effectiveness and accessibility of services.

Those who dealt with mental health challenges or support on campus have like really good understanding of what works and what doesn’t work about current mental health’s service options, so they can provide some really practical perspectives on like the logistics of things, on the quality of services, on the efficiency of services. (Participant 9, Student).

Importantly, several participants stressed that lived experience should be understood broadly. While students with lived experience of mental health challenges offer critical insights, so too do students without such experiences, whose perspectives may reflect the wider range of post-secondary experiences. As one faculty member observed, designing universal interventions requires drawing on diverse perspectives, which is essential for both prevention efforts and for anticipating unintended consequences that may arise when interventions are informed by only one segment of the population.

If you are designing or developing universal interventions, you need to know whether they work for everybody rather than just the people that are struggling with mental health problems. We need things to work for people before problems develop. But we also need to be sensitive and mindful that actually designing something, for one group of people may have unintended consequences for another group of people. So, I’m often quite careful about thinking of who’s in the room, and what diversity of experience they have. (Participant 11, Faculty).

Overall, participants framed student lived experience as a valuable form of expertise that not only enhances the relevance and rigour of student mental health research, but also strengthens the likelihood of producing meaningful and equitable change on campus.

Theme 2: Principles of fair & equitable recognition

Several participants emphasized that fair and equitable recognition of students’ contributions was not only a matter of good practice, but a fundamental ethical obligation. Several framed the issue in moral terms, with a participant equating a lack of recognition with plagiarism.

That’s just morally wrong. If you’ve contributed to something, and you’re not being recognized for your contributions. That’s not okay. That’s sort of plagiarism. That’s stealing someone else’s ideas and not giving them recognition (…) It’s just wrong (Participant 11, Faculty).

From Participant 7 (Student)’s perspective, researchers “compensate [students] for [their] time and [their] work” when they take “very seriously the opinions of post-secondary students”. Many other participants agree that compensation—both monetary and non-monetary—was identified as a critical mechanism for ensuring diversity of student voices. Without financial compensation, some students face insurmountable barriers to participation, resulting in a self-selection bias. As one faculty researcher noted, “if I don’t pay students, I have to recognize that I am getting a self-selecting bias in the students that I’m hearing from. And that is a problem and that there will be specific students that I’m not hearing from” (Participant 11, Faculty). When faced with limited funding, non-monetary forms of recognition such as skills training or career development could help students as well, though these were acknowledged as alternatives with “really profound limitations.”

Transparency, open dialogue, and shared decision-making were seen as core principles for equitable recognition.

Being as open and as forthright as possible, about, you know, what’s available, what you’re working on, the nature of the commitments that you’re looking, and the type of work that you’re engaging in, what are some potential benefits to their involvement, and letting students make the choice. Then, see if it’s an opportunity that makes sense for them at that point in their course of study, they can take it on; or maybe it’s something they can’t take on now and would prefer to engage with at another point in time. And in that intervening period, you can continue to seek, you know, opportunities to receive funding for that kind of work. But you know in all things, transparency and honesty rule the day (Participant 8, Faculty).

Given the inherent power differentials between faculty, staff, and students, many felt the onus was on the faculty or staff member to initiate and maintain these conversations.

It’s the researcher’s responsibility to make sure students recognize like what authorship means, and how their role in the project will be framed, especially if they’re like brought in for their lived experience (…) Yeah, I think it’s just like being clear, but I do think a lot of the onus is on the researcher to like initiate these conversations, and like, keep them going throughout the process (Participant 9, Student).

Others highlighted the importance of supervisors avoiding undue influence, ensuring that students felt free to decline opportunities without consequence: “doing all things possible to ensure that you’re not exerting any undue influence over somebody where they feel like (…) there’s a requirement for them to engage.” (Participant 8, Faculty).

Participants described a range of monetary compensation practices, from standard casual student employment rates (e.g., $20/hour) to stipends for focus group participation (e.g., $20 for two hours), often dependent on available grant funding. All participants agreed that the level of compensation should be commensurate with the time commitment and responsibility of the student partner.

Some suggested flexibility: “I think we should give them options and choices. I think the decision to compensate each individual can be done collaboratively, if possible” (Participant 13, Student). Preferences for cash or e-transfers were common, but logistical constraints meant gift cards were frequently used. Compensating via cash maybe more equitable. As one staff participant noted, “there are students that are on social assistance … so having cash available for people on social assistance is actually much more equitable because it won’t count as income in their bank account” (Participant 2, Staff). A minority cautioned that financial compensation could shift motivations, with one participant warning that financial compensation could make participation “feel like a job,” potentially leading to burnout and attracting those without genuine interests in the research aims (Participant 7, Student). Participant 11 (Faculty) echoed this sentiment and suggested that researchers should make engagement “fun and engaging and interesting”, which needs to be “something they want to do anyway. If it stops being that, we’ve got a problem.”

Non-monetary recognition also played a central role. This includes structured skills training for student’s skill development. Career-oriented supports such as conference opportunities, networking, and reference letters were also seen as minimum commitments for those working with student partners. Furthermore, authorship and appropriate acknowledgment in research publications are important, especially for those student partners who are interested in pursuing further studies. However, authorship decisions could be a particularly sensitive dimension of recognition, with one of the student participants perceiving significant variability in practice.

I mean, I have not published manuscripts myself, and none first author. Yet, I would be curious to know how like researchers and professors do it. Like to me, it seems almost arbitrary as a student on the student side of like who gets authorship and who doesn’t. It almost seems like some professors act more as gatekeepers, and are less willing to share authorship with students, particularly undergraduate students. And then some professors are the opposite. They intentionally include anyone who is involved in the research. As a student partner, I can see a lot of variability. I feel like me personally would err on the side of if someone has contributed to my research process and is interested in being a co-author. I would offer that to them whatever their role was (Participant 13, Student).

Theme 3: Current compensation practices

Although previous themes underscored the ethical and practical imperatives of compensating student partners, participants frequently described how both monetary and non-monetary compensation for student partners remains far from normalized in current research practice.

Several participants highlighted that direct payment for student contributions was not the norm, even when the work was essential to a project. One student participant recounted, “During [a university-wide student partner gathering], we had this talk as well where some of them said that they don’t get paid at all. Nothing at all.” (Participant 12, Student).

Another participant reflected on a broader culture of prioritizing participant compensation over compensating student partners.

We’re more focused towards paying our participants because we want the study to run. In a perfect world, [student partners] would also be getting paid for our time working on this project. But again, that’s just not how it works (Participant 3, Student).

Participants also discussed gaps in non-monetary compensation such as professional development, authorship, and skill-building opportunities.

Something that I hear a lot of is that students generally don’t get invited to conferences, and they don’t get invited to the formal knowledge translation aspects of research. And that’s a loss because that’s where most of the learning is actually happening, not just in the lab (Participant 2, Staff).

A PhD student participant described how undergraduate students are often undervalued within research teams and are “taken less seriously” (Participant 10, Student), which can limit the recognition they receive for their contributions. Furthermore, faculty may also have differing views on what constitutes an appropriate level of recognition:

The faculty might differ in their perceptions about what is appropriate compensation for collaboration or partnerships. I think some faculty do see authorship as the compensation, or as the recognition that will happen for the time, and so they might not offer compensation like financial payment, authorship, or training opportunities (Participant 4, Faculty).

Underlying these practices was a wider academic culture that, according to participants, often normalized unpaid student work and devalued student contributions.

Another factor that hinders, I believe, is an academic culture that does not value student engagement in research and is built on a view of exclusivity and scarcity. I don’t want to share publications, I don’t want to share credit. An academic culture such as one at [the university X] that’s founded on exploiting student labor without fair compensation is deeply rooted. It will be hard to change the minds of researchers who don’t believe that they need to compensate these contributions (Participant 13, Student).

Another participant described that there’s a “real work for free culture” for student partners.

I think as graduate students, we need to start to understand that our knowledge and our expertise and our time and our energy and our effort is worth something, and it doesn’t have to necessarily be monetary. But it needs to be recognized. And we’re not dispensable, or just someone else who’s gonna come through the door to do the same job you are. I think that culture needs to be dimmed a bit (Participant 3, Student).

Theme 4: Systemic barriers to monetary compensation

Many participants described facing systemic and logistical challenges when attempting to provide fair monetary compensation to students with lived experience. These challenges often stemmed from the tension between institutional and governmental policies and the principles of equitable recognition (as discussed in Theme 2). Importantly, these barriers were described across participants affiliated with post-secondary institutions in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, suggesting that systemic challenges related to compensating student partners may extend beyond a single institutional or national context. University hiring policies, administrative requirements, funding constraints, and national employment laws intersect to create a landscape where faculty must navigate complex rules, time pressures, and inconsistent compensation pathways. Participants frequently expressed frustration with the bureaucratic processes that research teams and student partners must navigate, from onboarding students, to processing payments and obtaining reimbursements.

Subtheme 4.1: Hiring policies

Several participants highlighted how standard hiring procedures within post-secondary institutions can unintentionally exclude students without formal academic qualifications, despite their valuable expertise. One participant reflected:

Often universities are a bit funny about hiring people who haven’t got academic qualifications (…) You know, it’s not as easy to hire people without, you know, without degrees. That’s probably something that universities need to work on is creating like formal ways of hiring lived experience workers who may not have academic qualifications. (Participant 1, Faculty).

Others noted that some post-secondary institutions require faculty to hire short-term student partners, particularly international students, as formal employees. In other words, researchers cannot simply compensate student partners with a one-off honorarium (e.g., $500) after a short-term engagement period without bringing students on as formal employees. This creates an administrative burden for student partners and faculty, as the process often involved extensive paperwork, tax reporting, and compliance with immigration laws that limit working hours. As one participant described:

If I am getting a student to come on board to speak to me maybe 10 hours over the course of a year… to set them up as an employee, they have to fill out a whole ton of paperwork. The university wants me to record hours so they don’t break any laws… but I might cease to be able to take on international students who have other jobs because they’d exceed the number of hours they’re allowed to work. (Participant 11, Faculty).

Such paperwork further discouraged short-term engagements. While such processes might be manageable for multi-year projects, Participant 11 (Faculty) noted they were “an awful” requirement for student partners who stay on only for a few months.

To me, this feels absolutely mad, because if I am getting a student to come on board to ... speak to me for maybe 10 hours, to set them up as an employee, they have to fill out a whole ton of paperwork, which is a burden and a pain for them. (Participant 11, Faculty).

Furthermore, administrative requirements, such as requesting government-issued tax or identification numbers for small honoraria, were making many students “really uncomfortable”. For students with severe mental health concerns, these processes sometimes created “an extra layer of vulnerability and nervousness and distrust of the system” (Participant 5, Faculty).

Subtheme 4.2: Workarounds

Faced with rigid systems, some researchers developed creative, even if cumbersome, workarounds. One faculty participant described bypassing human resource processes entirely to avoid hiring student partners as formal employees.

So what I just ended up doing, was paying them directly out of my research funds (…) and then getting reimbursed myself from the finance department. And they did require me to not only show that I had paid these students, but also show them with e-transfer and receipt. So, students also had to email and say that they had been paid and why, and they had to fill out a PDF kind of a receipt because I was paying transfer (…) so it was kind of like 4 pieces of documentation per every time I paid. (Participant 5, Faculty).

On the other hand, when hiring student partners as employees was an appropriate compensation mechanism for long-term projects, post-secondary institutions can make it difficult to hire student partners who lacked formal academic qualifications. To overcome this administrative barrier to hiring student partners, another participant described the importance of having a good finance manager who “had to be quite clever about how [they] framed” the hiring (Participant 1, Faculty). It was implied that having a good finance manager was crucial for navigating the bureaucracy and structuring compensation in compliance with regulations so student partners could be compensated appropriately despite administrative barriers.

Subtheme 4.3: Funding constraints

Participants widely acknowledged that limited funding shapes compensation practices. Stagnant grant amounts, unchanged in nominal terms despite inflation, further diminished the capacity to pay students:

Our standard funding is £800,000, which is a lot of money, but it’s not a lot of money if you’re supposed to run a three-year project. With a few staff members on it, it vanishes quite quickly. And importantly, it’s been 800,000 pounds for probably the last 10 years. There’s been a lot of inflation over that time, so the amount of money our funders are offering is in real terms shrinking (Participant 11, Faculty).

This limited funding reduced the ability to compensate students.

I’ll be honest, you know, when funds are tight, you hire less. Right? So I have. You know you don’t have resources. You’re not able to take on and train as much for sure. (Participant 4, Faculty).

However, Participant 2 (Staff) noted that “budgets can be negotiated [to] make sure there is adequate compensation available” and believes that “[Principal Investigators] can certainly make things happen if they want.” Participant 8 (Faculty) reported experiences where departments appeared to reclaim portions of compensation from students’ research assistantship funding and noted that, in their view, institutional policies at times prevented paying students who were on leave or not currently enrolled.

Subtheme 4.4: Time pressure and lack of awareness

A participant pointed to tight deadlines and short project timelines as barriers to thoughtful compensation planning:

I think sometimes like deadlines, and like a lot of the rush to finish a project or get a paper out can really hinder it. I think in those cases, you don’t always get to think through the best way to do compensation. You don’t necessarily have the time to provide, maybe the different types of compensation or recognition, that would be helpful for the students. So yeah, I do think these kind of deadlines and short turnout turnarounds can hinder compensation. (Participant 9, Student).

Another participant highlighted a broader lack of awareness about compensation practices and the value of student contributions:

It’s a lack of knowledge and recognition of the importance and value of students being involved in research. (…) The other thing is the lack of awareness about compensation practices. I can imagine some people are very hesitant to approach something that they don’t know very much about. (Participant 6, Faculty).

Theme 5: Structural solutions and advocacy

Participants emphasized that sustainable, equitable compensation for student partners in mental health research requires systemic change. This includes advocacy to policymakers and funding agencies, the development of institution-wide guidelines and best compensation practices, and transparent reporting of compensation practices to set precedents and normalize fair engagement. Participants stressed that meaningful progress in appropriately recognizing students’ lived experience expertise requires structural solutions that extend beyond individual projects.

Subtheme 5.1: Advocacy to policymakers and funders

One participant argued that effective change starts with advocacy directed toward decision-makers and working with them to find better solutions:

We just have to keep letting the policymakers at the university know what the problems are. But it’s not just complaining. We also have to start thinking of better solutions. (Participant 5, Faculty).

Funders were seen as a critical interest group in enabling appropriate compensation practices by explicitly allocating resources to compensating student partners:

Allocate, ring-fence money in a grant that can only be used for lived experience or student involvement. So that’s something funders could easily do. (Participant 11, Faculty).

Another participant emphasized the need for a clear, sector-wide discourse on student compensation, spanning funding agencies, institutions, and research ethics boards:

Sometimes, it’s not even recognized as an appropriate budget. And so making sure that the discourse around compensation for student involvement is clear and is recognized by [funding] agencies, by foundations, by the university, by ethics boards… So, a broad understanding or working agreement on how students should be compensated, or at least the best practices, would be critical. (Participant 6, Faculty).

Subtheme 5.2: Need for guidelines and best practices

Many participants described the current absence of standardized guidance for compensating student partners. Participant 4, Faculty would have loved to see the “summary of best practices in the field” for compensating students. One graduate student participant noted:

I haven’t dived into the literature, but I haven’t heard very much in terms of standardized policies and practices for compensating students who are involved in research (Participant 13, Student).

Institution-wide policies “that mandate some sort of compensation” were suggested as a way to improve ways students are being compensated (Participant 13, Student).

Guidelines, many participants emphasized, should articulate principles rather than rigid rules:

If it sets out principles of what you should be trying to achieve, it’s then up to the reporter to demonstrate how they have met the principles. So it doesn’t tell you what to do, but what it is that you should be aiming to do, and then leaves it up to you to describe and explain how you’ve met that (Participant 11, Faculty).

Participants also wanted practical examples embedded within guidelines.

I would like a guideline that would maybe say like – here are some examples of ways you can engage students as advisors (…) what’s their level of involvement? What role will they be playing? How many hours are we going to be spending together? What are suggested hourly rates? (Participant 4, Faculty).

However, a faculty participant also cautioned that guidelines should not create new burdens, especially for early-career researchers:

If we put guidelines or requirements in place for reporting or standards of practice, it’s quite easy for people higher up the food chain to meet and harder to meet when you’re starting out. And I don’t think anyone wants to make it harder for people at the start of their career. (Participant 11, Faculty).

Subtheme 5.3: Reporting to set precedent and normalize compensation practices

Most participants identified transparent reporting of compensation practices in publications and presentations as a strategy to shift norms. For instance, Participant 10 (Student) suggests that “we explicitly specify like how much we have compensated the participants.” A participant also emphasized the critical role of reporting in changing the research culture:

I think, without proper reporting practices, we can’t change the discourse of how students are recognized. And so the more that information is given in public forums and open science, and publications and presentations, the more others will see it. It’s a normalization essentially of these practices. (Participant 6, Faculty).

A participant also noted that silence on the topic further increases barriers to appropriately compensating students:

But if we don’t talk about it, it leaves folks like myself, who don’t have the expertise, a little more in the dark about like what is fair compensation for this kind of work. (Participant 4, Faculty).

Discussion

The objective of this study was to investigate how student partners’ contributions to post-secondary mental health research should be recognized, drawing on perspectives from faculty, student researchers, students with lived experience, and staff in post-secondary institutions and funding bodies. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine, in depth, the compensation considerations for student partners within the context of post-secondary student mental health research. We identified five themes: (1) lived experience as valued expertise; (2) principles of fair and equitable recognition; (3) current compensation practices; (4) systemic barriers to monetary compensation; and (5) structural solutions and advocacy.

Bringing together findings, several recommendations are offered regarding compensation for student partners and the ways in which members of interest groups can contribute to strengthening the current compensation landscape. Across the study, a foundational principle was identified: compensating student partners acknowledges that post-secondary students’ lived experience represents an irreplaceable form of expertise that enriches research design, implementation, and knowledge mobilization. All participants emphasized that engaging students as partners in decision-making improves the alignment between research outputs and tangible changes in campus-based mental health services and policies. This echoes the literature in patient-oriented research showing that patient engagement can improve the relevance, acceptability, and uptake of interventions [14]. From this standpoint, student partners’ contributions constitute skilled labour and time that directly shape study decisions and research outputs; accordingly, several participants described compensation for student partners as a fundamental ethical obligation. Recent guidance further emphasizes the importance of budgeting for partner compensation from the outset and ensuring that institutional processes to support timely, transparent payment as part of equitable partnership practice [37]. As Price and Richards [38] argue, the research community must “value patient partners in research with fair and transparent compensation policies, or their commitments to equity will be hollow.”

Taken together, the findings suggest that equitable compensation of student partners must be understood within both the dynamics of student–researcher partnerships and the broader institutional structures in which these partnerships occur. The discussion below first examines the unique power dynamics embedded within post-secondary research environments, where faculty and staff may simultaneously occupy roles as mentors, supervisors, instructors, or evaluators, while students often rely on research involvement for skill development, mentorship, and future career opportunities. These overlapping institutional relationships can blur the boundary between students as trainees and students as equal research partners in student mental health research, with implications for how lived experience expertise is recognized and compensated. The discussion then outlines guiding principles that may support more equitable recognition and compensation practices, alongside broader institutional and structural conditions that may enable or constrain the implementation of these practices within post-secondary student mental health research contexts.

Recognizing unique power dynamics in the post-secondary institutions

There is a known power imbalance between patient partners and researchers [39] and in the post-secondary mental health research context, power dynamics are further complicated by the institutional roles embedded within research teams. Individuals leading research may hold roles as instructors, supervisors, or program directors, creating layered power relationships with student partners [40]. Researchers should be aware of the power dynamics embedded in these interactions, which can unintentionally shape compensation decisions in inequitable ways. For example, students rely on faculty for mentorship, references, and career opportunities, creating a heightened risk of reluctance to voice concerns about recognition and compensation. Similar to King’s [27] observation that many undergraduate students in science first engage in research through unpaid or research-for-credit opportunities, student participants in our study suggested that many students, particularly undergraduates, are willing to volunteer in order to gain research experience and develop essential research skills. This willingness extends to student partners contributing to post-secondary mental health research. For students without disclosed mental health challenges, advocating for recognition as student partners may feel even less legitimate, despite the value of their perspectives. Although these opportunities may provide valuable learning experiences, participants in our study frequently described unpaid or token forms of recognition as normalized within research environments, even when student partners’ contributions were central to the research process. In turn, this dynamic may reinforce traditional supervisor–trainee relationships rather than positioning students as equal research partners whose lived experience expertise warrants appropriate recognition and compensation. Similar patterns have also been identified in patient engagement research, where patient partners remain frequently undercompensated despite increasing recognition of their contributions and the availability of compensation guidance [28, 29, 41].

The lack of compensation for student partners may reflect how partnership dynamics in student mental health research often mirror those found in educational settings. As several participants suggested, demand for research experience typically exceeds the number of available research positions. Consequently, many students enter research teams through a traditional ‘student as an apprentice’ model, where students and faculty share goals related to knowledge generation and the student’s professional development [25, 26]. Within this model, students are generally expected to be intrinsically motivated to learn, and unpaid involvement is normalized. Participants suggested that, in practice, the boundary between this conventional model and the ‘student as an expert’ partnership central to student mental health research is often blurred. This ambiguity may contribute to a lack of recognition for student partners’ lived experience as a form of expertise deserving of compensation. A clearer distinction is needed between student partners contributing lived experience expertise and student research assistants seeking skill-building opportunities. While students benefit from developing research skills, participants emphasized that the absence of monetary compensation risks biasing the student voice. Students who cannot afford to volunteer, such as those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, may be excluded, thereby reinforcing inequities in campus-based mental healthcare.

Thus, it is important for researchers to acknowledge the inherent power dynamics in academia, particularly the norm of unpaid student participation and the power faculty have to shape and advance students’ careers. Furthermore, the definition of “lived experience” should encompass both students with and without mental health challenges. This broader framing recognizes that diverse student perspectives are essential for developing equitable campus-based interventions. Evidence from patient engagement research shows that limited diversity among patient partners can result in decisions that are shaped predominantly by the values and priorities of the dominant group, perpetuating existing health inequities [42–44]. Taken together, these findings underscore the need for proactive strategies to identify and mitigate power imbalances. This may include planning for compensation in advance, setting clear and revisitable agreements, and separating mentorship or academic evaluation roles from compensation decisions. These steps help position students as equal partners in the research process, reduce reliance on volunteerism, and broaden the range of lived experience represented on research teams.

Key principles to compensating student partners

Across all interviews, it was evident that studies were conducted with highly diverse participant groups and within a wide range of institutional and administrative contexts. Student partners assumed roles ranging from consultative advisors to co-creators of research, with engagement spanning from single consultations or brief touchpoints to sustained involved over multiple years. Research teams also operated within different hiring and administrative structures. For example, some institutions required even short-term partners to be hired as employees, whereas others restricted hiring of students who did not hold formal academic qualifications. Variability in funding availability, project timelines, administrative support, local wage structures, and institutional policies further contributed to the heterogeneity of the research environments encountered.

Participants’ diverse experiences underscore that each project context is unique. Drawing on qualitative insights from the study, four guiding principles were identified to support researchers in designing forms of recognition that are equitable, flexible, and response to local conditions while still valuing student expertise: proportionality, transparency, shared decision-making, and non-coercion with support. When applied iteratively, from initial project planning through implementation and review, these principles offer a practicable framework for making context-sensitive compensation decisions.

1. Proportionality: Compensation should be commensurate with the responsibility and time commitment of the student partner.

2. Transparency: Researchers should establish clear, upfront agreements about roles, expectations, and both monetary and non-monetary forms of recognition, revisiting these agreements as projects evolve.

3. Shared decision-making: When possible, researchers should actively solicit student input on recognition formats most aligned with their goals, constraints, and professional development needs.

4. Non-coercion and support: Researchers should avoid undue influence and create a supportive, enriching environment that offers skill-building, networking, and mentorship opportunities alongside formal recognition.

Participants recognize that the ability to compensate students greatly depends on the available resources, which widely differ across research groups. Thus, while there seems to be a range of acceptable monetary compensation practices, from standard casual student rates to lower stipends, participants underscore the need for researchers to be upfront and transparent about the compensation, and to collaboratively work with students to find a type of engagement that works for student partners based on the researcher’s current resources. Researchers should also communicate how student partners’ contributions shaped research decisions, outputs, and dissemination activities, ensuring that students are appropriately acknowledged and informed about the impact of their involvement, which may further support meaningful recognition and sustained partnerships. By focusing on the principles of genuine recognition practices, researchers can adapt based on their context and foster partnerships where students feel valued, respected, and motivated to contribute their unique expertise [29].

Normalizing compensation of lived experiences

While the guiding principles identified in this study may help support equitable recognition practices at the project level, participants also emphasized that meaningful implementation depends on broader institutional and structural conditions. Researchers, including faculty, staff, and students, spend a significant amount of time overcoming various systemic barriers to compensating student partners. These include institutional hiring policies requiring students to be formal employees for short-term engagements; visa restrictions that limit paid work for international students; and administrative burdens such as tax forms and reimbursement delays. For faculty, navigating these barriers often demands significant time, persistence, and support from well-resourced administrative teams, which are not equally available across departments or institutions [45–47]. These constraints create a cyclical problem: limited resources and rigid systems lead to undercompensation, while those attempting to compensate fairly face time-intensive administrative hurdles, further disincentivizing change. The qualitative findings complement the patient engagement literature, which identifies a lack of funding and institutional procedures as barriers to compensating patient partners [28–30]. In particular, Richards et al. [48] reviewed real-life scenarios to describe barriers faced by the patient engagement team, including inflexibility for institutions to adapt financial forms/templates to the needs of patient partners, compensation not prioritized in research budgets (e.g., assume patient partners are volunteers who want to give back), and hesitancy to create new policy to facilitate patient partner compensation because it may take more financial resources. Similarly, the present qualitative insights describe participants frustration with the tremendous administrative burden that both researchers and student partners must go through to complete one payment.

Systemic barriers may discourage researchers from prioritizing compensation for student partners. When fewer teams provide compensation, institutions have limited incentive to design mechanisms that support equitable monetary compensation for students’ lived experiences. Examples from higher education illustrate that sustained, collective advocacy can precipitate structural change. For instance, salary increases and enhanced benefits for graduate employees, achieved through continual advocacy by unions and students, demonstrate that institutional compensation infrastructures and policies can be successfully redesigned [49, 50]. In patient-oriented research, similar challenges have been addressed through national guidelines that explicitly recommend budgeting for and compensating partners with lived experience, such as Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research [8] and the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research payment guidance for public involvement in healthcare research [37, 51].

Many participants expressed that student partners are currently inadequately compensated and called for structural solutions and advocacy from the interest groups in post-secondary mental health research. Such efforts, they noted, are essential for formally recognizing students’ lived experience as valuable and compensable expertise. Although robust guidance exists for compensating patient partners, participants suggest that more work is needed to be done to support researchers in determining appropriate compensation for student partners and in developing institutional policies to enable such practices. This necessity is amplified by the unique power dynamics between faculty and students in post-secondary settings. Discussions surrounding meaningful engagement of student partners is emerging, and a recent scoping review highlighted the need to develop a comprehensive framework and reporting guidelines for engaging post-secondary students [4]. Similarly, there is a lack of discourse on how best to acknowledge and compensate the time and expertise of student partners across the diverse research contexts in which they contribute.

Building on these findings, several institutional and policy-level considerations emerged that may help normalize compensation practices for student partners. This includes (1) developing adaptable compensation guidelines with concrete examples of different types of student partners’ contributions and recognition/compensation strategies, (2) encouraging transparent reporting of compensation practices in publications and conference presentations to normalize and set a precedent for fair compensation practices, (3) advocating for grant agencies to explicitly allocate funds for compensating student partners in student mental health research, and (4) collaborating with policymakers, university administrators, and the research ethics board to design policies that allow researchers to compensate diverse groups of student partners with different levels of commitment. In advancing these efforts, funders, institutional leaders, and ethics boards should recognize that compensating post-secondary student partners involves distinct considerations compared with other public-involvement contexts—stemming from student–faculty power dynamics and contexts specific to the academia. It may therefore be helpful for national guidance and funding mechanisms to reference post-secondary student partners explicitly and for institutions to develop administrative procedures that specifically foster compensation of student partners. Institutional buy-in may play an important role in normalizing equitable recognition and compensation practices, particularly in research environments where individual researchers may face administrative, financial, or cultural barriers to implementation. Future work should therefore explore how institutions can support adoption of these guiding principles through policy development, funding mechanisms, and administrative infrastructure. By embedding compensation norms into funding and policy structures, institutions can help shift academic culture toward valuing student partners’ expertise and efforts. Together, these qualitative insights offer preliminary, empirically derived principles that may inform the development and adaptation of equitable recognition and compensation practices in post-secondary student mental health research. The guiding principles identified in this study are intended to support diverse interest groups in adapting recognition practices to their own contexts across varying institutional structures, funding environments, and student partner roles.

Limitations

This study’s qualitative design allowed for in-depth exploration but may limit generalizability to contexts beyond post-secondary mental health research contexts within institutions located in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, where most participants were based at the time of the study. While efforts were made to include diverse perspectives, the sample may not fully capture the experiences of students and faculty from all institutional types and geographical locations. The sample included the perspective of only one staff member, and future work should incorporate the perspectives of funders and institutional administrators regarding what is within their scope and capacity to change in support of more inclusive and equitable compensation of student partners in post-secondary student mental health research. Furthermore, compensation practices and institutional structures vary widely, and some identified barriers and solutions may not be applicable in settings with different governance, funding, or cultural contexts. Although participants come from various disciplines and are stakeholders in post-secondary mental health research, the findings may not reflect student engagement or compensation practices in other contexts. An economic assessment, aligned with GRIPP2 checklist suggestions, was not possible within the scope of the current project. Additionally, most participants were already supportive of student engagement in research, which may limit the extent to which the findings reflect the perspectives of researchers or institutions that place less value on, or have limited experience with, student partner involvement.

Conclusion

The study identified key considerations for compensating student partners in post-secondary mental health research, grounded in the perspectives of diverse interest groups. Four guiding principles of fair and equitable recognition of students’ lived experience and expertise were highlighted: proportionality, transparency, shared decision-making, and non-coercion and support. Qualitative insights demonstrated that recognizing lived experience as compensable and valuable expertise is not the norm, and compensating students is often hindered by institutional policies, funding limitations, and the power structures in academia. The study also underscores the need to address these barriers, which require embedding recognition of postsecondary students’ lived experience into institutional and funding structures, supported by clear guidelines and accountability mechanisms. By making recognition and compensation of students’ lived experience a norm rather than a discretionary practice, research teams can foster more equitable partnerships that, in turn, enhance the impact, relevance, and real-world application of student mental health research and policy.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Author contributions

SP, LE, EM, and KC conceptualized and designed the study. SP designed the interview guide with input from LE, EM, and KC. SP conducted the interviews. SP and PT analyzed the data. SP drafted the manuscript with input from LE, EM, and KC. EM assisted SP with engaging the Inlight Student Advisory Committee. KC supervised the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

We would like to acknowledge that K.C. was supported by the Rossy Chair in Campus Mental Health at the University of Toronto during this project. Her research was supported by a grant from the Connaught Global Challenge Award at the University of Toronto awarded to K.C. S.P. was supported by the Inlight Studentship Award Program. The research team operates independently of the funding agencies, and the funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Data availability

The qualitative data that supports the findings of this study are not available in a public repository and cannot be shared with individual requestors because they contain potentially identifiable information and are subject to participant confidentiality agreements.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the University of Toronto’s Research Ethics Board (REB #00046842). Interested participants received a read-only version of the consent form via email, which outlined the study purpose, their rights as participants, the voluntary nature of participation, and the confidentiality of their data. Participants who agreed to take part scheduled an online interview via Zoom, during which written informed consent was obtained immediately prior to the interview.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.