. 2019 Nov 11;35(1):307–314. doi: 10.1007/s11606-019-05436-2

Table 1.

Definitions of Engaged Research from Four Major Funders

CIHR	PCORI	NIHR	NHMRC
“Patient-oriented research refers to a continuum of research that engages patients as partners, focusses on patient-identified priorities and improves patient outcomes. This research, conducted by multidisciplinary teams in partnership with relevant stakeholders, aims to apply the knowledge generated to improve healthcare systems and practices.” (http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/48413.html). “Patient engagement occurs when patients meaningfully and actively collaborate in the governance, priority setting, and conduct of research, as well as in summarizing, distributing, sharing, and applying its resulting knowledge (i.e., the process referred to as ‘knowledge translation’). It is of vital importance as engaging patients in health care research makes [investments in] research more accountable and transparent, provides new insights that could lead to innovative discoveries, and ensures that research is relevant to patients’ concerns … ” (http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/45851.html).	“By ‘engagement in research’ we refer to the meaningful involvement of patients, caregivers, clinicians, and other healthcare stakeholders throughout the research process—from topic selection through design and conduct of research to dissemination of results. We believe that such engagement can influence research to be more patient centered, useful, and trustworthy and ultimately lead to greater use and uptake of research results by the patient and broader healthcare community.” (https://www.pcori.org/engagement/what-we-mean-engagement)	“public involvement in research … research being carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them. This includes, for example, working with research funders to prioritise research, offering advice as members of a project steering group, commenting on and developing research materials and undertaking interviews with research participants,” (https://www.nihr.ac.uk/patients-and-public/). “ … Involvement is distinct from participation in research: patients and the public you actively involve are contributing to the research process as advisers and possibly also as co-researchers. Researchers and clinicians may not have first-hand experience of the illness, disease or health condition that they wish to research. PPI can therefore provide researchers with insights into what it is like to live with a particular disease, illness or health condition, and these insights can help to make health research more relevant to the needs of patients, carers and service users. You can actively involve patients and the public in all stages of the research process including Prioritisation of studies, design and management of studies, data collection and analysis, dissemination of findings”¹⁷ (p. 5).	“Consumer and community involvement is about research being carried out with or by consumers and community members rather than to, about or for them.”¹² “Research engagement defined: Much of the policy discussion in Australia around maximising the benefits of publicly funded research … has focussed on measuring research impact. Broadly defined, research impact is the ‘demonstrable contribution that research makes to the economy, society, culture, national security, public policy or services, health, the environment, or quality of life, beyond contributions to academia.’ This approach is focussed on the late stages of a research process. Research engagement, by contrast, is defined as follows: Engagement describes the interaction between researchers and research organisations and their larger communities/industries for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge, understanding and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.” (https://www.atse.org.au/content/publications/report/industry-innovation/research-engagement-for-australia.aspx, p. 4; http://www.arc.gov.au/engagement-and-impact-assessment)

CIHR

PCORI

NIHR

NHMRC

“Patient-oriented research refers to a continuum of research that engages patients as partners, focusses on patient-identified priorities and improves patient outcomes. This research, conducted by multidisciplinary teams in partnership with relevant stakeholders, aims to apply the knowledge generated to improve healthcare systems and practices.” (http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/48413.html).

“Patient engagement occurs when patients meaningfully and actively collaborate in the governance, priority setting, and conduct of research, as well as in summarizing, distributing, sharing, and applying its resulting knowledge (i.e., the process referred to as ‘knowledge translation’). It is of vital importance as engaging patients in health care research makes [investments in] research more accountable and transparent, provides new insights that could lead to innovative discoveries, and ensures that research is relevant to patients’ concerns … ” (http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/45851.html).

“By ‘engagement in research’ we refer to the meaningful involvement of patients, caregivers, clinicians, and other healthcare stakeholders throughout the research process—from topic selection through design and conduct of research to dissemination of results. We believe that such engagement can influence research to be more patient centered, useful, and trustworthy and ultimately lead to greater use and uptake of research results by the patient and broader healthcare community.” (https://www.pcori.org/engagement/what-we-mean-engagement)

“public involvement in research … research being carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them. This includes, for example, working with research funders to prioritise research, offering advice as members of a project steering group, commenting on and developing research materials and undertaking interviews with research participants,” (https://www.nihr.ac.uk/patients-and-public/).

“ … Involvement is distinct from participation in research: patients and the public you actively involve are contributing to the research process as advisers and possibly also as co-researchers. Researchers and clinicians may not have first-hand experience of the illness, disease or health condition that they wish to research. PPI can therefore provide researchers with insights into what it is like to live with a particular disease, illness or health condition, and these insights can help to make health research more relevant to the needs of patients, carers and service users. You can actively involve patients and the public in all stages of the research process including Prioritisation of studies, design and management of studies, data collection and analysis, dissemination of findings”¹⁷ (p. 5).

“Consumer and community involvement is about research being carried out with or by consumers and community members rather than to, about or for them.”¹²

“Research engagement defined: Much of the policy discussion in Australia around maximising the benefits of publicly funded research … has focussed on measuring research impact. Broadly defined, research impact is the ‘demonstrable contribution that research makes to the economy, society, culture, national security, public policy or services, health, the environment, or quality of life, beyond contributions to academia.’ This approach is focussed on the late stages of a research process. Research engagement, by contrast, is defined as follows: Engagement describes the interaction between researchers and research organisations and their larger communities/industries for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge, understanding and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.” (https://www.atse.org.au/content/publications/report/industry-innovation/research-engagement-for-australia.aspx, p. 4; http://www.arc.gov.au/engagement-and-impact-assessment)