Tips for developing communications to recruit public and community research participants

Course Information

Meaningful public and patient engagement is the cornerstone of all good research. Research can only be effective if it involves the people, groups and communities who are affected by, or who have lived experience of, your area of research.

However, recruitment of participants can sometimes be a challenge for researchers – where do we start? How do we reach the groups we want to talk to? How can we get their interest and encourage them to get involved?

This session aims to offer an overview of how a well-planned communication approach can help you to reach the people and groups you want to engage with.

It will offer an introduction to the key principles of effective communications and offer tips on how to develop audience-appropriate communications to reach research participants.

This session is aimed at researchers. It will cover the basics of a good communications approach and include examples of good (and not so good) practice.

The session is co-led by Nicola Weatherburn, Communications Manager for the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria (NENC) and Chris Lloyd, who is an experienced public contributor to research at a local and national level.

For more information

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session you will be able to:

  • Understand the basic principles of an effective communication approach – audience, purpose, content, channel.
  • Understand how to put this into practice when developing recruitment materials.
  • Be able to develop more effective communication materials and approaches to engage with public/community members/patients

    • Course Agenda

  • Effective communication principles
  • Effective communication approaches

    • Course Dates

    Course Start Date:  Wednesday, May 6, 2026 2:00 PM

    Course End Date :  Wednesday, May 6, 2026 3:00 PM

    Enrolment Dates

    Enrolment Start Date:  Wednesday, February 11, 2026 8:00 AM

    Enrolment End Date :  Tuesday, April 28, 2026 5:00 PM

    Course Location

    Online

    Course Tutor/s

    Nicola Weatherburn, Chris Lloyd

    Course Delivery Type

    Online - Live Virtual course icon

    Course Fees

    This is a free course.