PCORI Funding for Advancing the Science Engagement in Research (US)

The long-term goal of the Science of Engagement initiative is to build an actionable evidence base that clearly identifies the methods and approaches that lead to effective engagement in research; how they should be modified and resourced for different contexts, settings, and communities to ensure equity in engagement and research; and how engagement supports patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR).6 After more than 10 years of funding engaged research, PCORI has learned that engagement is a complex intervention, but PCORI does not yet have an in-depth understanding of how it produces its effects.

Engagement in research typically includes several interacting components involving various groups and individuals (e.g., community-based organizations focused on a particular health condition and/or laypeople with that condition), and the environment or context can be complex (e.g., multisite, multistate research projects with local engagement activities). Finally, causal pathways and possible feedback loops remain unclear, and mediators or moderators of effects may be present (i.e., pathway complexity).

Focus Areas

• PCORI’s PFA on the Science of Engagement will solicit applications that focus on:
  • Development and validation of measures to capture structure/context, process, and outcomes of engagement, for both stakeholders and investigators.
  • Development and/or testing of engagement methods to generate evidence on the most effective approaches for engagement in research, particularly for underrepresented populations, and how effectiveness varies by context.

Priorities

• Measuring Engagement in Research (Category 1)
  • The first priority and goal of this funding opportunity is to develop reliable and valid measures that enable future comparative effectiveness research of engagement methods. Measures might address several purposes, including enabling research project teams to conduct monitoring and process improvement, for researchers to study best practices and to assess engagement impact. Measures should be developed in a real-world context and be easy to use across diverse organizational and community contexts. Measures are needed to assess the perspectives of all members of the research team, including patient partners, members of the broader health and healthcare community, and researchers.
  • The following topics are priorities for Cycle 2 2024:
    • Consistent with the Donabedian Structure/Context-Process-Outcomes framework, measurement research projects may touch on one or more elements of the framework. Applicants are not limited to the Donabedian model and may also draw on other relevant frameworks with appropriate justification. Applicants may also suggest other priorities if they are well justified.
    • Structure/Context: Measures that assess key contextual factors that may influence the conduct of engagement and/or the outcomes of engagement. Priorities include stakeholder diversity and representativeness, barriers and facilitators to engagement, and capacity and readiness for engagement.
    • Process: Measures that assess aspects of how engagement is planned, conducted, or sustained. Priorities include facilitating equitable and inclusive participation of diverse partners and measures to systematically describe activities and structures by which patients and stakeholders were engaged and the level of engagement achieved at various stages of the work.
    • Outcomes: Measures that assess the outcomes that result from engagement in research. Priorities include patient-centeredness of studies, perceptions of relevance and trustworthiness of findings for end users, and ability to recruit and retain diverse and representative research study participants.
• Developing and Testing Engagement Methods in Research (Category 2)
  • The second priority of this funding opportunity is to support research projects that evaluate the impact of various engagement methods on key processes and outcomes of engagement and research. Consistent with complex intervention frameworks, PCORI seeks to fund projects that will generate evidence on effective approaches to engagement and, critically, also generate evidence on how or why these approaches are or are not effective. Projects in this category must include measurement of the quality of engagement for patients, stakeholders, and/or researchers. Measurable constructs related to quality of engagement may include those defined in PCORI’s Measuring What Matters resource—engagement experience, partnership functioning, group dynamics, equity and inclusiveness of engagement, trust between researchers and partners—or other well-justified constructs proposed by the applicant.
  • The following are specific priorities for Cycle 2 2024:
    • Which engagement methods work in what settings, especially for ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion among engaged stakeholders and research project participants, and how do they do so?
    • Which engagement methods result in high-quality engagement, especially for historically underrepresented populations?
    • How do engagement methods need to be adapted to be effective for different stakeholder and patient populations, especially those that have historically been excluded or underrepresented in research projects and research partnerships?
    • Which engagement methods achieve the goals of making research more patient-centered, timely, relevant to patient concerns, culturally sensitive, and trustworthy, or other outcomes or constructs if well justified, and how do they achieve these goals?

Funding Information

• Category 1: Development and/or assessment of validity of measures to capture structure/context, process, and outcomes of engagement in research.
  • Less than or equal to $1 million in direct costs
• Category 2: Development and/or testing of engagement methods to generate evidence on the most effective approaches for engagement in research, particularly for underrepresented populations, and how effectiveness varies by context.
  • Less than or equal to $1.5 million in direct costs

Eligibility Criteria

• In general, applications for the conduct of research and management of funding may be submitted by appropriate academic research, private sector research, or study-conducting entities. This may include, among others, agencies and instrumentalities of the Federal Government, nonprofit and for-profit research organizations, and colleges and universities.
• Per PCORI’s authorizing statute, every applicant must demonstrate capability to comply with the following conditions: abide by the transparency and conflicts of interest requirements that apply to PCORI with respect to the research managed or conducted under contract; comply with the PCORI methodological standards adopted by the Board of Governors; consult, as appropriate, with the expert advisory panels for clinical trials and rare disease; deposit de-identified data from the original research into a PCORI designated repository to facilitate data sharing, as appropriate; have appropriate processes in place to manage data privacy and meet ethical standards for the research; comply with the requirements of PCORI for making the information available to the public; and comply with other terms and conditions determined necessary by PCORI to carry out the research project.

Ineligibility Criteria

• Individuals are not permitted to apply.

For more information, visit PCORI.