Table 9 Public involvement in allocating research funds

Participation in review

∙ Descriptions of processes used to involve publics in review of research projects [13, 17], including public observation of or participation in scientific peer-review processes, or separate review or ‘triage’ processes [46, 47]

∙ Analysis of approaches to including publics in research review, including dedicated consumer review panels [53] or public peer reviewers [57,58,59]

∙ Analysis of involvement of publics in research review across research systems [5, 19, 64]

Criteria and calculus to allocate funds

∙ Criteria to assess research projects

 ◦ Using consumer-identified values and associated guidelines [46, 47]

 ◦ Using criteria relevant to community-based participatory research when under review [46, 51]

∙ Criteria to assess adequacy of public involvement

 ◦ Evidence of relevance of public partners and extant engagement [48]

 ◦ Evidence of adequacy of time and funding allocated to public involvement [6, 44]

∙ Calculus to assess evidence of public involvement

 ◦ Varied approaches, e.g. mandatory minimums, weighted criteria or un-weighted criteria [5]

 ◦ Concern that prevailing evaluative logics render public involvement a secondary consideration [19]

Funding flows

∙ Mechanisms to support researchers to pursue public involvement

 ◦ Involvement as condition of funding [54]

 ◦ Encourage students/junior researchers through leaves or fellowships [61, 65]

∙ Mechanisms to enable publics to be involved

 ◦ Publics face financial challenges that impede involvement, especially communities and civil society organisations [38, 41, 42, 51, 66]

 ◦ Advance planning by researchers to anticipate funding needs, such as training, and expenses incurred by publics, such as travel costs, child care costs, sitting fees for participation [17, 43, 52, 56]

 ◦ Challenges in flowing funds to public partners [17, 44, 45]

 ◦ Funding arrangements that support public involvement independently of embedded public involvement activities within specific grants [19]

 ◦ Funding arrangements where publics are the ‘institution paid’ with support mechanisms to increase capacity for community partners to be successful in securing funds [46, 65]