Do you want a project that really means something to people and has social impact? Then you won’t do it without the people who the project is about! So work from the start with experts by experience.
Experts by experience are people who have experience with the subject of your project from their own situation, such as patients, children, their parents, young people or the elderly. Working together provides additional insights and perspectives that you as project leader often do not have. This leads to outcomes that really benefit the people your project is about.
Collaborating with experts by experience in research is also called (patient) involvement. However, involvement of patients in research, innovations and care innovation is not self-evident. From various experiences in projects, we have developed the Guide to Partnership and the Involvement Matrix, intended to promote collaboration with those affected by the subject being researched (patients, persons with disabilities, young people, the elderly, relatives, etc.) in (research) projects.
The Guide to partnership is an interactive PDF that provides insight into the different steps in (research) projects and describes how to collaborate. This guide is intended for researchers, project leaders, patients and relatives by experience. It is written at a plain language level and therefore easy to understand for a broad group of people.
The Involvement Matrix is a tool for project leaders/researchers, patients and relatives to discuss together the desired role in a (research) project. The Involvement Matrix is a tool to indicate which role you wish to play.
Project leaders can thereby:
- Pay more attention to collaboration;
- Design collaboration better;
- Report more systematically on collaboration with patients.
Getting Started!
To promote and facilitate collaboration, we have several tools to help you get started:
- Guide to partnership
- Involvement matrix with additional materials:
- A practical guide on how to use the Involvement Matrix.
- A Word version of the Involvement Matrix that can be filled in digitally
- A checklist for project leaders and researchers on how to use the matrix
- A fact sheet about the Involvement Matrix
- An overview with examples of how to fill in the Involvement Matrix
